Contest Entry: Favourite Opening Batsman in ODI Cricket

Hello to all Cricket loving Steemians...

This is my Entry Post for the contest 'Favourite Opening Batsman in ODI cricket.'

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Brief intro

For most kids growing up in the subcontinent, cricket comes naturally to them. It wasn't any different for me either. The most interesting part of a cricket match is to follow the pair of opening batsman in the team you support. When it comes to opening batsmen, I have admired a bunch of them, namely, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya, Upul Tharanga, Tamim Iqbal, Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden, Graeme Smith, Rohit Sharma and the list goes on.

I could have easily chosen current Indian opening batsman Rohit Gurunath Sharma, who needs know introduction. With three double hundreds in ODI cricket, which isn't a very common sight, he is definitely one of my favourites as well. However my favourite opening batsman in ODI cricket is Virender Sehwag.

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Reason for my selection

Sehwag gave a new dimension to explosive top order batting for team India. But this wasn't natural but improvised. It was captain Ganguly who asked Sehwag to open the batting in a match against New Zealand since the middle order was already occupied. Incidentally, Sehwag top scored for India in that game. Since then, there was no looking back.

Batting style:

Virender Sehwag possessed a compact batting stance. He liked to stay a few inches ahead of the popping crease as most established cricketers do against fast bowlers. However he had no footwork on most occasions. He liked to open his arms and use his long levers to reach out to balls bowled wide of the off stump. For balls bowled short of length, he would pull or hook them over the fence on the leg side. When the balls stayed low on the leg stumps or were wrapped on the pads, he flicked them between square leg and deep fine leg.

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Sehwag's bat speed was amazing. He modelled his batting to look like his role model and batting legend Sachin Tendulkar. Luckily he also had the privilege of opening the batting for India with the Master Blaster himself for almost a decade including three World Cups.

Every time India went out to bat, cricket lovers hoped Sehwag would fuel India to a quickfire start to take advantage of the field restrictions in the first ten overs.

Statistics

For someone who paved the way for fearless opening batting in new age Indian cricket, Sehwag's statistics aren't too bad. His career batting average is around the mid 30s as an opener. With 14 hundreds and 35 fifties, Sehwag was a crowd favorite. He even scored a double ton in ODI Cricket against West Indies in 2011, which remains his best score (219).

Sehwag's stats as an opener (Source: ESPNcricinfo.com)

Another noteworthy fact, Sehwag scored a boundary off the first ball of Indian innings in every match of the ICC World Cup 2011 except the Final. He was part of the 2007 T20 World Cup and 2011 World Cup winning team.

Haven't included all the stats, figures since they are easily available on the internet. Just expressed my choice of best ODI opener.

That's all in this contest entry. Thanks for reading.

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