Former Indian opener Virender Sehwag was an explosive opener who played shots with his hand-eye coordination, but he said he changed his style early in his career to match the master blaster Sachin Tendulkar.
“When I was growing up, I played a lot of 10- and 12-over games, I would bat in middle order. I got only 10-odd balls to face and I tried to score as much as I could. I applied the same approach in domestic and international cricket and people were appreciating my strike rate being more than 80 or 90 in Test cricket,” Sehwag said when asked if his approach changed how batsmen opened the innings in a fundamental way.
“I was just playing my game and not thinking that I have to score quickly or do something different except when I joined the team and wanted to bat like Tendulkar. I realised there could be only one Tendulkar and I changed my stance and backlift. I realised I should change my game and I did it.”
On IPL, he said, “I think it is a platform for a young Indian players. If you look at 2000-01, when I joined the team, we took 20 games to get used to international cricket. Now, someone like Shikhar Dhawan, who has played in IPL, is used to the pace, and he scored 180-odd on Test debut against Australia. When I or Yuvraj joined, our game was not great and we took 20-25 games to score 150 or 100. Look at KL Rahul. He went to Australia and got a hundred in his second Test there. That’s the impact IPL has had on a domestic player.”
“Players like Ravindra Jadeja, Yusuf Pathan, Warner, Glenn Maxwell were noticed at IPL first. It is a platform for players all over the world. If a player is playing IPL and earning money, it’s not his fault that he’s not playing for India. He is not quitting. He is playing first-class, one-day cricket and IPL. If selectors don’t pick him, what can he do?”
Sachin Tendulkar and Sehwag were one of the best opening pair in the world who destroyed with their different techniques. They were tough to bowl and would make the life of the batsmen tough and create panic among the opponents.