Ever since Virat Kohli picked Virender Sehwag as a better T20 opener than Sachin Tendulkar, he has been getting hell on social media.
How could he pick Sehwag over the most decorated player of the last three decades for sure? That was what baffled cricket enthusiasts not a little.
But then, Kohli is not wrong. Sehwag was a better T20 opener than Sachin Tendulkar. He was part of the team that won the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa in 2007, and he played his part with a couple of good knocks, especially with his 68 against England in an important match. It was unfortunate, though, that he couldn’t play in the final on account of injury.
In all, he played 19 T20Is. Tendulkar, on the other hand, played just one T20I. So there is no comparison on that front. Yes, the IPL will provide a better sample for comparison. So, Tendulkar played 78 matches in all for Mumbai Indians, and he scored more than 2,000 runs at an impressive average of around 35, but his strike rate was 119.82, actually quite low even for that era of cricket.
Let’s now see what Sehwag has done in the IPL. The Nawab of Najafgarh, in Delhi Daredevils and Kings XI Punjab colours, has scored more than 2,700 runs across 104 matches at an average of 27.56. At this point, you would think Tendulkar is ahead. But wait, we haven’t discussed the most important aspect of T20 batting. Yes, the strike rate and Sehwag’s stood at an impressive 155.44.
Which clearly means Sehwag played more innings of impact. We have seen over the years in T20s, that strike rate is the most valued aspect of batsmanship. If a batsman scores a 15-ball 30, that is going to be far more valuable than, say, a 40-ball 50.
Clearly, Kohli had that in mind when he picked Sehwag ahead of Tendulkar. In fact, he double checked, if the interviewer had T20s specifically in his mind. Of course, across all formats Tendulkar stands out as a big giant of the game, but as far as T20s are concerned, there is no real competition.
Numbers don’t lie!
Frankly speaking, Sehwag’s mindset was totally different. His strike rate was on the much higher side in both Tests (82.33) and ODIs (104.33). Tendulkar, on the other hand, had strike rates of 54.09 and 86.23, respectively. Even in T20Is, Sehwag had a very impressive strike rate of 145.38. To put it into perspective, MS Dhoni had a career T20I strike rate of 126.14.
Taking nothing away from Tendulkar, Sehwag was a batsman whose batting style won many matches for India across formats. Not for nothing was he praised by former India captain Sourav Ganguly a few years ago. “Sehwag was the biggest match-winner of that generation. He was special. He was not far behind Sunil Gavaskar in terms of being the best Indian opener,” Ganguly said.
Former England cricketer Derek Pringle went one step further, and called Sehwag the greatest batsman of the noughties. “Dashing openers have always been with us, and Chris Gayle may yet take violence against the new ball a step further, but nobody yet has managed to do it with the audacity and frequency of Sehwag,” Pringle wrote in his article in 2009.
Kohli picking Sehwag ahead of Tendulkar is totally influenced by Sehwag’s ability to take the game away from the opposition in the blink of an eye. And in T20s, this approach particularly came in handy.
At the end of the light-hearted clip, Kohli picked his former Royal Challengers Bengaluru team-mate Chris Gayle over Sehwag. He chose Gayle for the same reason he chose Sehwag over Tendulkar. Gayle was more potent in the T20 format, as simple as that.
