5 attacking batsmen who have better records in Tests than ODIs
Historically, Tests have been a bastion of conservative batsmen, technically adept and perseverant, capable of grinding bowlers down all day long. These were batsmen who rarely played a false shot or gave in to impulses. However, every now and then comes a player who redefines the way cricket is played. In this regard, there are some players who seemed set to rule the shorter formats of the game, players with killer instincts, natural aggression and a devil-may-care approach to batting.
And some of those players would surprise you further by making it big in Test cricket. These are players, who despite their flamboyant cricket and flair of the game, racked up numbers just as good or even better in the longer format of the game compared to the shorter formats.
1) Virender Sehwag
Sehwag was never supposed to succeed. Even in the ODI format. He was just a middle order batsman, primarily in the team for his off-spin. And then a masterstroke propelled him to the top of the order and a second masterstroke brought him into the Test arena, where he made a mockery of everything that whites had to offer.
Sehwag scored 8,586 runs in just 104 Tests at a sensational average – strike-rate combination of 49.34 and 82.23. For anyone with more than 2,000 runs in Test cricket, Sehwag has the highest strike-rate besides two triple centuries as he nearly became the first player ever to score three Test triple centuries.
It was not like Sehwag was bad in ODIs having raked up 8,273 runs at 35.05 with a strike-rate of 104, part of a rare club of players with a career strike-rate higher than 100. However, a difference of close to 14 points in the positive direction was unanticipated when it came to Sehwag, who never really moved his feet much and almost always relied on his hand-eye coordination, playing high-risk cricket which he defined with a different mantra.
Sehwag inspired an entire generation of modern day players who believe in scoring at more than a strike-rate of 75 even while playing red-ball cricket, exploiting the open areas on the field and the absence of various fielding restrictions that ensure fielders in the outfield in the shorter formats of the game.
Sehwag, despite his attacking style, had a penchant for daddy hundreds, scoring the third (168 balls), fourth, sixth, tenth and eleventh fastest double hundreds in Test cricket.