Recalling Virender Sehwag's 8 opening partners in Test cricket

Virender Sehwag redefined the role of an opener in Test cricketLegendary Indian batsman Virender Sehwag is one of the greatest openers to have ever played the game of cricket. He changed the definition of opening batting from surviving the new ball to tearing it to shreds with his own unmatched brand of aggressive batting.Across the span of his 11 year-long Test career, Sehwag had many different partners at the top of the order. From stop gap arrangements to proper Test openers, the man has seen it all.Here we focus on the players who have opened the innings with Sehwag in Test matches and their most memorable partnerships with the Delhi genius.

#8 Cheteshwar Pujara

Pujara opened the innings with Sehwag against England in 2012

One of India’s premier Test batsman at present, Cheteshwar Pujara was handed the job that Rahul Dravid had done for a long long time for Team India with unprecedented success. He had been forced to sit out for a few months due to a lack of form, but the Saurashtra batsman made a roaring comeback with a brilliant 145 not out in his last Test match against Sri Lanka.

Pujara is not only a great batsman at No. 3 but has also been successful on the few occasions when he has opened the innings. He also played alongside Virender Sehwag for a solitary inning as the latter’s usual partner Gautam Gambhir sat out of a Test match due to family reasons. This was in the home series against England in 2012 and Sehwag & Pujara strung together a partnership of 57 runs while chasing a score of 80 in the fourth innings.

#7 Irfan Pathan

Irfan Pathan reacts after scoring a Test century against Pakistan

There was a time in the early part of Irfan Pathan’s career when he could do no wrong whether it was with the ball or even with the bat. There were many who were of the opinion that India may just have found the new Kapil Dev. But injury woes and a remarkable dip in form all but derailed his Test career and left him high and dry.

Nevertheless, Irfan Pathan played some crucial knocks in his Test career including a hundred against Pakistan. There were times when, for the team’s sake, he was asked to open the innings and he did a fair job.

He also partnered Sehwag at the top of the order, albeit just for a single Test. This was during the final Test of the 2008 Border-Gavaskar Trophy played in Adelaide. In terms of their partnership, it was a forgettable Test as they managed just 34 and 2 in the two innings they played.

#6 Sanjay Bangar

Sanjay Bangar played 13 Tests for India

Presently one of the assistant coaches for Team India, Sanjay Bangar also had a brief stint with the Test team as a player between 2001 and 2002. A more than decent all-rounder in India’s domestic circuit, Bangar got his opportunities under the leadership of Sourav Ganguly and to be fair to him, he put in his best effort. He was also Virender Sehwag’s opening partners virtually throughout his short career of 13 Tests.

The biggest moment for the Sehwag-Bangar combination came in a home series against the West Indies when the duo put up an impressive 201-run opening partnership and made a huge contribution to India’s eventual score of 457.

#5 Murali Vijay

Murali Vijay has been one of India’s best Test batsmen in recent times

Murali Vijay is surely one of the best and most consistent batsman for Team India at present. With every passing series, Vijay has grown from strength to strength and has managed to cement his place at the top of the order. He has come good on several occasions in the recent past and has pulled India out of many a tricky situation.

However, he first came into prominence when he joined Virender Sehwag as opener for the final Test of the 2008 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The highlight of Sehwag and Vijay’s brief sojourn as partners was without doubt their 221-run partnership against Sri Lanka at the Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai. While Murali Vijay missed out on his hundred by 13 runs, Sehwag too failed to cash in on his chance to make a rare third triple-hundred as he eventually got out for 293.

#4 Wasim Jaffer

Wasim Jaffer couldn’t replicate his first-class success at the international level

Wasim Jaffer is one of the legends of first-class cricket with close to 17,000 runs at an average of just over 50, yet somehow his Test career did not flourish in the same vein. He had his opportunities and he had a fair amount of success too when he got Test doubles against West Indies and Pakistan, but somehow he did not seem to fit in and finally faded away.

However, he did have a decent run at the top of the order as a partner to Virender Sehwag, especially during the tour to West Indies in 2006 where they got 2 century partnerships and a couple of fifty-plus stands.

The most well-known partnership between Sehwag and Jaffer came against the Proteas at Chepauk in 2008 when they amassed 213 before Jaffer fell for 73. It was in the same innings that Sehwag went on to score his second triple-hundred and his highest Test score of 319.

#3 Aakash Chopra

Despite having a superb technique, Chopra couldn’t survive at the Test level for long

When Akash Chopra first made his entry into the Indian Test side, he was considered a highly promising young talent with the perfect opener’s technique. But as time passed by, his failure to convert the hard fought 40s, 50s & 60s into an innings of substance saw him fade away quickly into oblivion. However, the one thing for which we will remember him is some of the meaty opening partnerships he put together with Virender Sehwag, particularly on India’s most famous tour Down Under in 2003/04.

The one partnership between Sehwag and Chopra that stands out from the rest was the 141 they got in the Boxing Day Test played at Melbourne. Although Aakash Chopra scored just 48 of those runs, he played his part by hanging on there while Sehwag went about in his usual merry way.

#2 Rahul Dravid

Rahul Dravid is a legend beyond comparison

A legend beyond comparison and the most techinically sound Indian batsman ever are some of the best ways to describe the great Rahul Dravid. He is a one-in-a-generation kind of player who seems to have been born to play the game of cricket. Among his other traits, Dravid possessed the great quality of being a team man to the core. Ample proof of this can be found in all the great partnerships that he was involved in throughout his career with other legends that played along with him.

The team man that he was, Dravid had even opened the batting on a few occasions with another maestro, Virender Sehwag. These two had already batted with each other a number of times before they began opening together as a stop gap arrangement for the 2006 tour to Pakistan.

The very first partnership between the two was the only notable feat they achieved as an opening pair. But the best part is that the 410-run stand has gone down in history as the second highest opening partnership ever for India and also the second highest for any wicket.

#1 Gautam Gambhir

Gambhir was Sehwag’s best opening partmer in Test cricket

Gautam Gambhir adds to the list of solid Delhi players who have had a long stint with the Indian cricket in the past few years. Apart from being the best opening partner for Virender Sehwag, he is also known for his individual batting prowess with more than 4,000 Test runs at a more than decent average of 42.58 and has played quite a few outstanding knocks for the country.

The famous Sehwag-Gambhir partnership performed consistently well throughout the near 8 years that they batted together at the top of the order, but there were some stands that really stood out from the rest.

One such opening stand was the partnership of 117 against England on the fourth day of the first Test in the home series against England back in 2008. India were chasing a mammoth target of 387 which needed to be chased down in less than 4 sessions. The job of the openers, or so it was assumed, was to ensure minimal damage on the fourth evening so that the rest of the batsmen would safely be able to secure a draw.

But Gambhir and Sehwag had something else in mind when they walked out to the middle and they executed the plan of going after the England bowlers successfully. Gambhir kept giving the strike to Sehwag most of the time and the latter unleashed his wide range of strokes. By the time the partnership ended with Sehwag’s dismissal, India were left with 270 to win with a day’s play to go and they did it comfortably in the end.