Virender Sehwag reminisces his moments with Sachin Tendulkar on the field
Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar formed one of the most exciting batting partnerships in ODIs and Tests for many years. The sight of watching the duo walk out to bat together is something that every Indian cricket team fan fondly remembers.
They were arguably one of the best opening pairs in ODI cricket putting on 3919 runs in 93 innings at an average of 42.13 with 12-century stands and 18 half-century stands between them. Their highest partnership of 182 runs against New Zealand came at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium in Hyderabad in November 2003.
The two legends shared a lot of memorable moments amongst themselves on and off the field. During a session at Agenda “AajTak”, Virender Sehwag reminisced some of these moments he shared with the Master Blaster.
Sehwag has always been known to be one of the most talkative players on the team and he reminisced an incident where Sachin had to give him a banana in the dressing room to stop him from talking.
He also spoke about an incident where he was the reason as to Sachin’s first ever stumping dismissal, at the hands of English spinner Ashley Giles.
The incident took place in the 3rd Test between India and England at Bangalore way back in 2001. Sachin, along with a young Sehwag looked to revive the Indian innings after the English bowlers ran through the top order. After putting on a partnership of 52 runs, Sachin came down the track to an Ashley Giles’s delivery only to be stumped by the keeper James Foster. Unfortunately, it was Sehwag who had planted the idea in Sachin’s head to attack Giles’s bowling.
“I was stepping out and easily hitting my shots. He was mostly padding. I said there is no spin, you can charge and play. It took me 2-3 overs to convince him. The only ball that turned was the one on which he stepped out of crease and was stumped. I did not go back to dressing room that day at tea break. I sat in umpires’ room. Later was I called. Tendulkar said only once in my career I have got out stumped in Test cricket and that’s because of you, ” said Sehwag.
Despite England having the upper hand in the Test, it ended up as a draw because of the rain which came down on the final two days of play.
Sehwag also spoke about another incident 2010 where he came agonisingly close to his third triple century for India, but unfortunately, was dismissed 7 runs short of the figure against Sri Lanka. He claimed that if he had reached 300, Sachin would inaugurate his school which is located in Jhajjar, Haryana.
“In 2010, playing against Sri Lanka, I was on the verge of becoming only third player to hit three triple centuries. Before the start of second day’s play I told Tendulkar that if I achieve the feat, he has to promise me that he will be there on the opening of my school. However I got out on 293 and never asked Tendulkar to do the honours,” reminisced Sehwag.
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