Aakash Chopra Sheds Light On His Experience While Batting Alongside Virender Sehwag

Former Indian opening batsman Virender Sehwag is one of the greatest opening batsmen to have graced the game. Sehwag was a key figure in the Indian setup across formats for more than a decade and redefined the role of attacking gameplay at the top. Aakash Chopra, who had the opportunity to open with the retired cricketer, during his brief career of 10 Tests, has revealed his experience.

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Virender Sehwag was one of the few who constantly looked to take the attack to the opposition and hardly spared any bowler.

In 104 Tests, the Delhi batsman operated at a strike rate of 82.23 while scoring 8586 runs alongside 23 centuries of which there were two triple-hundreds. Sehwag played a vital role in India’s 2011 World Cup victory and his score of 219 was once the highest in One-day international cricket.

In an interview with Sportskeeda, Aakash Chopra disclosed that when he joined the team, the Indian batting order was quite settled with the lone vacant spot at the top. Aakash revealed that Sehwag made his task comfortable, dispatching the good balls to boundaries due to which the opposition’s focus used to be on him.

“The Indian batting order was so packed that there was only one slot open while batting alongside Virender Sehwag, and I took it up. Viru was making my job a lot easier because he was hitting good balls for fours. When someone does that, then opposition keeps focusing on them,” the 42-year-old stated.

Virender Sehwag was absolutely outstanding: Aakash Chopra

Despite Sehwag’s reputation of not running well between the wickets, the 42-year old admitted that he was keen on going for singles and doubles and the pair ran well between the stumps. Chopra said that the 41-year-old wanted to run for the ones and twos as and when it were available.

“Since he was hitting a lot of fours and sixes, it would have been natural if he (Sehwag) didn’t want to run much, but he wanted to take singles as soon as it was available,” Aakash Chopra said.

Aakash Chopra further said that he and Virender Sehwag played school cricket together and would choose the best seat to watch him play.

“Viru was absolutely outstanding; we go back a long way, we played school cricket together. I just wanted to enjoy from the best seat in the house but just leave it at that because there is only one Virender Sehwag,” he added.

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