Virender Sehwag, who recently announced his retirement from all forms of international cricket has thanked former skipper Sourav Ganguly for having faith in him and backing him for a long time. Sehwag also said that without Ganguly’s backing, he would have never been a successful test cricketer. “Without Sourav Ganguly’s backing, I wouldn’t have become a Test cricketer,” said Sehwag while announcing his retirement on his 36th birthday.
Ganguly did reignite the Test career of Virender Sehwag by asking him to open the innings. During the early 2000s, team India was struggling to get a reliable Test opener and that had caused a lot of issues in the team. The likes of S. Ramesh, Deep Das Gupta, S. Bangar and S. Das had all auditioned for the opener’s slot, but in vain. The Indians, under the astute leadership of Sourav Ganguly, toured England in the summer of 2002, when the skipper asked Virender Sehwag if he was ready to open the innings.
Sehwag, who himself wasn’t confident was given Ganguly’s full support over the matter and was even said that a few failures would in no way harm his career. Sehwag agreed to open and that decision was the biggest boon to the Indian test side in the 21st century. Sehwag went on to create history as an opener and because of his solid and rapid starts, the Indians went on to convert tame draws into epic wins.
It was very generous of Sehwag to look back on his career and thank the people who actually played a great role in helping him shape up his career.