Legendary Indian opener Virender Sehwag has revealed a stunning fact about his career: he genuinely pondered quitting from One-Day Internationals even before the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup. Long-term exile from the playing XI under then-captain MS Dhoni was the cause of the early retirement. Sehwag did, however, note that his career was altered by counsel from Sachin Tendulkar, his batting partner and close friend.
The incident goes back to 2007-08 Commonwealth Bank series in Australia, which was a tri-nation one-day international series featuring India, Australia and Sri Lanka. Sehwag only managed to play the first five matches completed in the series and he was not quite in form as he only scored 81 runs with an average of 16.20 and the highest score was 33.
Dhoni benched him for the last three league games because of his lean patch. Gautam Gambhir and Sachin Tendulkar led the batting charts as India won the tri-series. Sehwag’s position in the squad and future in the format were questioned after the historic victory.
“In the 2007-08 series in Australia, I played the first three (five) matches and then MS Dhoni dropped me from the side. I wasn’t picked for a while after that. Then I felt that if I can’t be a part of the playing XI, then there was no point in my playing ODI cricket. Then I went to Tendulkar and said, ‘I am thinking of retiring from ODIs’. He said, ‘No, I went through a similar phase in 1999-2000, where I felt I should leave cricket. But that phase came and went. So, you are going through a trough, but it will pass. Don’t make any decision when you are emotional. Give yourself some time and 1-2 series, and then take a call.’ When that series ended, I played in the next series and made a lot of runs. I played the 2011 World Cup and we won the World Cup as well,” Sehwag said on Padamjeet Sehrawat’s YouTube channel.
Virender Sehwag returned to his best after hearing this advise, making 150 runs in three games in the Kitply Cup later that year. He then went on a run of form that saw him open for India in the 2011 World Cup, which the Men in Blue won. With a stellar ODI record, Sehwag finally retired in 2015. He amassed 8,273 runs in 251 games, including 15 hundreds and the greatest individual score in ODI history (219).
