Former India skipper and now BCCI President Saurav Ganguly has revealed who according to him was the biggest match-winner of Indian team under his captaincy. Ganguly’s batting link up with Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid is termed to be one of the most potent and successful batting line-ups of the world. But according to Ganguly, destructive batsman Virender Sehwag was the biggest match-winner of his generation.
“Sehwag was the biggest match-winner in that generation as an opener,” Sourav Ganguly told a leading media house.
Ganguly, who is supposed to be one of the best captains of Indian team, revealed how he pushed Sehwag to play his natural game and come out of his comfort zone.
“I had my own belief. I told him listen ‘Nobody comes with a batting position. It’s how you adjust’. The best players are made when they come out of their comfort zone,” Ganguly added.
“If I had batted at No. 4 or No. 5 in one-day cricket, I would have been half the player. The same with Sachin, he would have scored half the runs he scored if he had batted in the middle. I said ‘just get out of this comfort zone and go and play,” he said.
Former India skipper just not stop there and went on to compare Sehwag with legendary Sunil Gavaskar. Ganguly stated that Sehwag isn’t too far from India’s first World Cup winning team opener Sunil Gavaskar.
“He was special, one of the best. India rates Sunil Gavaskar as the best opening batsman, very rightly. This man was not far behind. They played differently. One fellow believed in letting the ball go outside the off-stump and making it old. The other one believed in hitting the ball and making it old. But the impact was remarkable,” Ganguly said.
Sehwag helped India win the first Twenty-Twenty World Cup in 2007 in South Africa and a 50-over World Cup triumph in India in 2011. Sehwag finished his career with 8536 runs in 104 Tests and with 8273 runs in 251 ODIs.
