Friday 1st August 2008
Sehwag 10th Indian to cross 5000
Fiery Indian opener Virender Sehwag on Friday became the 10th Indian player to amass 5,000 runs or more in Test cricket.
He achieved the feat when he reached 149 during his knock of 201 not out against Sri Lanka on day two of the Galle Test.
By the end of the Indian innings, he had amassed 5052 runs at an average of 53.17 in 59 Tests.
He joins an illustrious list of Indian cricketers who have surpassed this milestone. At the top is Sachin Tendulkar (11826 runs) followed by Rahul Dravid (10124), Sunil Gavaskar (10122), Dilip Vengsarkar (6868), Sourav Ganguly (6819), Mohammad Azharuddin (6215), Gundappa Viswanath (6080), V V S Laxman (5901) and Kapil Dev (5248).
Sehwag also became the second Indian batsman to carry his bat through a completed innings and one of the five batsmen in the world to have recorded a double hundred while carrying his bat.
Sunil Gavaskar was the first Indian to carry his bat through a completed innings. He achieved the feat when he scored 127 not out against Pakistan at Faisalabad in January 1983.
The other four cricketers who hit a double ton while carrying their bat through the innings are Australia's Bill Brown (206 not out), England's Len Hutton (202 not out), New Zealand's Glenn Turner (223 not out) and Sri Lanka's Marvan Atapattu (216 not out).
