MUMBAI: Indian opener Virender Sehwag has announced his retirement from international cricket, more than two-and-a-half years on from his last appearance for India.

This brings down the curtains on a remarkable career in which he scored 17,253 international runs across formats. Sehwag is the only Indian batsman to score a triple-century in Tests, and he did it twice.

With 8,586 runs from 104 Test matches, Sehwag stands at fifth in India’s all-time list. In ODIs, he scored 8,273 runs, with 15 centuries including the second-highest individual score of 219.

In 19 T20 Internationals, the right-hander made 394 runs. Aside from all those runs, Sehwag took 40 wickets in Tests and 96 in ODIs.

Though he made his ODI debut in 1999 and was initially seen as a limited-overs player, Sehwag’s biggest contribution was changing the way opening batsman approached Test cricket.

Sehwag went on to revolutionise the opener’s approach, and his strike-rate of 82.23 is the best for any batsman to aggregate over 2,000 runs.

The 2003-04 season was a breakthrough one for him, with 1,040 runs in nine Tests including 195 on day one of the MCG Test and India’s first triple century, a 375-ball 309 against Pakistan at Multan.

Among his other Test career highlights are match-winning centuries in Mumbai (twice), Galle, Kanpur, Kolkata, Colombo and Ahmedabad and, famously, an attacking 68-ball 83 on the fourth evening of the Chennai Test in December 2008 that propelled India towards victory on the final day. One of this most unique innings came at Adelaide earlier that year, in his comeback series, when he produced a patient 151 in the second innings to secure a draw.

Incredibly, of his 23 Test centuries, 14 were in excess of 150. Apart from two monumental triple-centuries — the first at Multan and the second versus South Africa at Chennai in 2008 — Sehwag possesses four doubles.

He was a key figure in the Test team’s ascendancy to No. 1 in ICC rankings, scoring centuries both home and away. In late 2012, Sehwag became the ninth Indian cricketer to play 100 Test matches.

His last Test was in March 2013 against Australia in Hyderabad and his last ODI came against Pakistan in January 2013. He lost his place in the T20 team in 2012.

Published in Dawn, October 20th , 2015

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