Virender Sehwag's Test Record and Two Triple Centuries
Virender SehwagIndia7 min read
There is a category of batter whose numbers look like a mistake. Virender Sehwag opened the batting in 104 Tests, scored more than 8,500 runs at an average close to 50, and did it at a strike rate above 80. No opener with a comparable volume of Test runs has scored anywhere near that quickly. The combination should not work. Openers face the new ball, the field is up, and the accepted arithmetic says that a batter who plays attacking shots in the first hour gets out in the first hour.
Sehwag did get out in the first hour, frequently. He also made two triple hundreds, six doubles and 23 centuries, and the trade turned out to be heavily in India's favour.
A middle-order batter who was moved to the top
He came into the side as a number six. His Test debut, at Bloemfontein in November 2001, was in the middle order, and he made 105 in a lost cause against a South African attack led by Shaun Pollock. The following summer, on the tour of England, India had an opening problem and Sourav Ganguly asked him to solve it. He made 84 at Lord's in his first innings as a Test opener and stayed there for the next thirteen years.
The move worked because Sehwag's method did not depend on the state of the ball. He judged length very early, played almost exclusively square of the wicket and straight down the ground, and had unusually still hands. What he did not have was much foot movement, which is normally fatal against a moving ball and which he compensated for by hitting through the line hard enough that an inside edge went for four rather than into the stumps. It is not a technique that can be taught and it was never coached out of him, which is to the credit of everyone involved.
The other thing he did not have was any interest in the situation. Sehwag batted the same way at 0 for 0 as at 300 for 2, and the same way in the fourth innings as the first. That was widely described as recklessness and was closer to a refusal to price risk differently depending on context.
Multan, 2004, and the first triple hundred by an Indian
India had never had a batter reach 300 in a Test innings. Sunil Gavaskar had not, nor had Sachin Tendulkar, who was batting at the other end when it happened.
At Multan in March 2004, on the first tour of Pakistan in fifteen years, Sehwag made 309 from 375 balls. He reached 300 by hitting Saqlain Mushtaq over long-on for six, having been on 295 with Tendulkar advising him to get there in singles. India made 675 for 5, bowled Pakistan out twice and won by an innings and 52 runs.
The declaration that followed became a story in its own right, with Rahul Dravid closing the innings while Tendulkar was 194 not out, and it overshadowed a good deal of what Sehwag had done. Six sixes in a Test triple hundred was not a normal thing in 2004. Neither was reaching 300 in the second session of the second day.
Chennai, 2008, and the fastest triple in Test history
Four years later, against South Africa at Chepauk, he did it again and did it faster. Sehwag made 319 from 304 balls, reaching 300 in 278 deliveries, which remains the fastest triple hundred in Test cricket. He was 309 not out overnight and out ten runs later on the second morning, caught in the deep, which is precisely how the innings should have ended.
He is one of only four batters to have made two Test triple centuries, and the only one to have done it in a total that India then failed to win from. The match was drawn. That is the recurring complaint about Sehwag's biggest innings and it is not entirely fair; a batting side that makes 627 has done its job.
Between the two, in December 2009, he made 293 against Sri Lanka at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai. He was out attempting to bring up the 300 with a boundary, off the bowling of a part-time spinner, with the third triple hundred seven runs away. Nobody who watched him bat was surprised by any part of that sentence.
The highest scores, and what they had in common
| Score | Opposition | Venue | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 319 | South Africa | Chennai | 2008 |
| 309 | Pakistan | Multan | 2004 |
| 293 | Sri Lanka | Mumbai | 2009 |
| 254 | Pakistan | Lahore | 2006 |
| 201* | Sri Lanka | Galle | 2008 |
The Galle innings is the one that best explains him. India were bowled out for 329 and Sehwag made 201 of them, unbeaten, on a turning pitch against Muttiah Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis in the series where Mendis was taking wickets against everyone else in the world. The next-highest score in the innings was 27. Making a double hundred in a total of 329 requires either the rest of the order to fail badly, which it did, or a batter operating in a different match to everyone around him, which he was.
The 254 at Lahore came in a first-wicket stand of 410 with Dravid, one of the largest opening partnerships in Test history, and shows the other version of the same player: the one who could bat all day if nothing got him out.
The fourth-innings chase at Chennai
The single most valuable innings of his Test career was not one of the big ones. In December 2008, India were set 387 by England at Chepauk, in the Test played immediately after the Mumbai attacks. No side had chased that much in India.
Sehwag came in and made 83 from 68 balls before the close of the fourth day. He was out that evening, and India were 131 for 1 at stumps, which turned an implausible target into a straightforward one. Tendulkar made 103 not out the following day and India won by six wickets. Every account of that Test correctly gives Tendulkar the ending. The chase was made possible in the ninety minutes before it, by a batter who treated a target of 387 as a reason to hit the ball harder.
The bowling nobody remembers
Sehwag took 40 Test wickets with his off spin. That is not a large number, but he was a genuine sixth bowler for much of the middle of his career, used to break partnerships and to get through overs on the fourth day when Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh needed a rest. He also had a habit of taking a wicket in his first over, which captains noticed.
It is a small thing that made the balance of India's Test sides considerably easier. A side with an all-rounder at the top of the order can play four specialist bowlers and still have a fifth option.
The end, and how quickly it came
The decline was abrupt rather than gradual. Sehwag averaged in the fifties until 2010 and then, over the following three years, stopped picking up length quite as early. That is the one thing his method could not survive. A batter who plays through the line with minimal foot movement needs perfect judgement of length, and when the eyes go by even a fraction the edges start carrying.
His last Test was in March 2013, against Australia at Hyderabad. He announced his retirement from all cricket in October 2015, on his thirty-seventh birthday, having not played for India for nearly three years. There was no farewell match, which is unusual for a player of his standing and was reportedly his own preference.
Where the record sits
Sehwag's Test average of just under 50 is a fraction below what people assume. The strike rate of a little over 82 is far above what any comparable opener has managed. His 319 remains the highest individual Test score by an India batter, and he is the only Indian with two triple hundreds.
The more useful measure is time. A side batting first that has 100 on the board inside fifteen overs has an extra session to work with, and India in the 2000s repeatedly won Tests abroad because the first hour had gone their way. That was not a plan anybody could have designed. It was a consequence of picking a batter who could not be persuaded to play any other way and then declining to interfere with him.
For the white-ball version of the same method, see his one-day record and the 219 at Indore. For the franchise years, his Delhi and Punjab career in the Indian Premier League covers the rest.