'He is satisfied with 90-100 whereas I used to score 250-300': Sehwag says 'no player in Indian team bats like me'

When it comes to comparisons, Virender Sehwag has shunned them saying there is no one from the current Indian set-up whose style of batting resembles his.

Nine years since his retirement, Virender Sehwag's accolades are still lauded. The former India batsman revolutionised opening in Test cricket with his unique, brash and fearless attitude. Long before Bazball, there was Sehwag's school of madness that taught the world how effective batting while letting yourself loose could be. During his time, Sehwag played some of the most insane knocks of that era. Two triple centuries, multiple double centuries – Viru knew how to bad big and long.

Which is why it is somehow baffling when some of the modern-day youngsters are compared to Sehwag. Every now and then, some or the other former cricketers comes up with the cliched 'He reminds me of Sehwag' phrase, even though there's daylight between the two. From the current crop of Indian cricketers, the two players Sehwag has been compared to the most are Prithvi Shaw and Rishabh Pant. And expectedly so. While poles apart from each other, Pant and Shaw's knack of playing with flamboyance and aggression has often got the world talking about them in the same sentence as Sehwag. However, when it comes to Sehwag himself, the India great has shunned these comparisons saying there is no one from the current Indian set-up whose style of batting resembles his.

"I don't think so there is any player in the Indian team who bats like me. The two players who came to my mind who have come close to it are Prithvi Shaw and Rishabh Pant. I think Rishabh Pant is a little bit close to what I used to bat like in Test cricket but he is satisfied with 90-100 but I used to score 200, 250 and 300 and then be content. If he took his game to that level then I think he can entertain the fans even more," Sehwag said during News18 India Chaupal.

In 2004 against Pakistan, Sehwag became the first Indian cricketer to score a triple-century in Tests and repeated the feat four years later at home against South Africa. The following year, Sehwag came close to registering a third triple in Tests but fell agonizingly short of it by seven runs. Sehwag always batted with an element of risk involved; most times it paid off; sometimes it didn't. The ideology behind not changing his approach during different phases of his innings is what made Sehwag different from the rest. Irrespective of whether he was batting on 0 or 99, Sehwag batted with the same intent. Here's why.

"I used to play tennis ball cricket where my mindset was to hit more runs through boundaries. I played with the same template in international cricket and used to calculate how many boundaries I need to score a century. If I am on 90 and to reach 100 if I take 10 balls then the opposition has 10 balls to get me out, which is why I used to go for boundaries and gave them only two balls to stop me reaching the triple figure-mark. The risk percentage rate dropped from 100 to 200," mentioned the former India opener.

Disclaimer: This Article is auto-generated from the HT news service