Former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag and his reputation as a batter was big enough for him to be considered worthy of not only handing out advises to his juniors, but also fellow senior players in the team. There were also certain occasions wherein he would also seek advises from the legends of the sport at certain crucial junctures of his career.
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However, coincidentally, and hilariously at hindsight, in most of the cases, the advises had only backfired at the recipient resulting in personal repentance.
On one such occasion, it was former Indian captain Anil Kumble, who had to regret upon paying heed to Sehwag’s advice before nearing a second Test century. A few months later, it was Sehwag at the receiving end of another former captain Rahul Dravid’s suggestion, when the former looked like all set to become the only batter to have three Test triple hundreds under his belt.
Although not an advise, but on another occasion Sehwag had to bear the brunt of then-India captain Sourav Ganguly‘s decision (to which he agreed upon), which resulted in the former getting dismissed for a duck for the third time (second golden duck) in his Test career.
15 Days After Maiden Test Triple Century, Virender Sehwag Was Dismissed On 0 Due To Sourav Ganguly’s Decision
Sehwag had become the first Indian Test triple centurion on the second day of the first Test match of India’s tour of Pakistan 2004 in Multan. Quite famously, he had audaciously and stubbornly, hit spinner Saqlain Mushtaq for a six with his scorecard reading 295*.
Come the second match in Lahore, he had missed out on another well-deserved century in the second innings, returning back after scoring 90 (134). During the final match of the series in Rawalpindi, Sehwag had registered a first-ball duck in the first innings courtesy of his captain.
In an interaction with popular YouTuber Vikram Sathaye around four years ago, Sehwag had stated the circumstances which had led to a rare failure for him in that series. He had revealed that he was not entirely fit to play the very Test, owing to back pain.
Despite informing Ganguly that he was unable to even walk properly, the latter showed very little concern. Instead, Ganguly was of the view that it doesn’t matter if he (Sehwag) got out on a duck, the Pakistanis would anyway be terrified after merely seeing his name in the Indian Playing XI.
“I had told Dada [Sourav Ganguly] that there’s immense pain in my back. I’m barely able to walk properly and would be unable to bat. So Dada said that I need to just be able to stand. The Pakistanis would anyway get terrified just by having a look at your name on the paper. It doesn’t matter if you score runs or not, not even if you get out on a duck.”
Sehwag remarked that such was Ganguly’s wretched prophesy that he was caught at gully on the very first delivery of the innings (bowled by Shoaib Akhtar). As Ganguly had said, Sehwag’s duck didn’t really matter as India ended up winning the match by an innings and 31 runs and the series 2-1. In fact, Sehwag had received a maiden ‘Player of the Series’ award in Tests for smashing 438 runs at an average of 109.50.
Virender Sehwag Has Most Ducks Among Indian Specialist Batters
Not a novel affair for the right-handed batter, it is understandable why such a high-risk batter such as himself has the most number of ducks among specialist Indian batters in international cricket.
Along expected lines, some specialist Indian bowlers in Ishant Sharma (34), Zaheer Khan (29), Harbhajan Singh (19), Mohammed Shami (18) and Kumble (17) are above Sehwag in the list of Indian players with most number of ducks in Test cricket. However, he, as a specialist batter, leads alongside legendary captain Kapil Dev with 16 ducks.
However, in the list of most ducks in international cricket across all the three formats, the likes of Tendulkar (34) and Virat Kohli (33) are ahead of Sehwag, who has 31 ducks in front of his name.
