‘Not far behind Gavaskar,’ Sourav Ganguly names biggest match-winner of his generation

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BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, who is regarded as one of India’s best captains, played with some of India’s greatest cricketers during his time. Along with Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and VVS Laxman, Ganguly formed India’s batting line-up, rated as one of the best during the early 2000s. But according to Ganguly, the biggest match-winner of that generation was former India opener Virender Sehwag.

“Sehwag was the biggest match-winner in that generation as an opener,” Sourav Ganguly told India Today.

Ganguly revealed how he pushed Sehwag to come out of his comfort zone.

“I had my own belief. I told him listen ‘Nobody comes with a batting position. It’s how you adjust’. The best players are made when they come out of their comfort zone,” Ganguly added.

“If I had batted at No. 4 or No. 5 in one-day cricket, I would have been half the player. The same with Sachin, he would have scored half the runs he scored if he had batted in the middle. I said ‘just get out of this comfort zone and go and play,” he said.

Ganguly also went on to state Sehwag was not far behind the legendary Sunil Gavaskar as an opener in Test cricket.

“He was special, one of the best. India rates Sunil Gavaskar as the best opening batsman, very rightly. This man was not far behind. They played differently. One fellow believed in letting the ball go outside the off-stump and making it old. The other one believed in hitting the ball and making it old. But the impact was remarkable,” Ganguly said.

Sehwag finished his career with 8536 runs in 104 Tests and with 8273 runs in 251 ODIs.