Sehwag is India's biggest match winner
Much has been mentioned about Dravid's match winning performances in print and electronic media. Without a shadow of doubt Dravid has been a outstanding player who has ever played the game. When it comes to his status in Test matches, he is one of the greatest of all time in the history of the game. Not many can in the game's history can boast of 10,000+ runs at an average of 50+.
DRAVID SCORES AT A LOW PACE OF 41.73 RUNS PER 100 DELIVERIES.
While I rate Dravid as one of the best in this era, I find it difficult to rate him as a matchwinner, because he scores at a very slow place. Dravid scores at an average of 41.73 runs per 100 balls, which means by the team he would have got to around 150 runs, he would have consumed around 60 overs. That effectively leaves our bowlers with very few time and overs to dismiss the opposition twice. Considering that Indian bowlers have a very weak bowling line up, our team requires more number of overs than other bowlers in the world to bundle out the opposition twice.
SEHWAG STORES AT A STRIKE RATE OF 78.72 PER 100 BALLS.
In this regard I would rate Sehwag higher and consider him a genuine match winner. Sehwag has a very healthy batting average of 50.06, which is marginally lower than Dravid's batting average of 52.53, but where Sehwag scores heavily is his strike rate. Sehwag scores at a pace which is almost double of Dravid. While Dravid scores at a strike rate of 41.73 runs per 100 balls, Sehwag scores at 78.72 per 100 balls. Sehwag's strike rate is the 2nd best in the world in all time, just behind Adam Gilchrist who is considered one of the best match winners of all time. One reason why Australians teams have consistently defeated all other teams in the world for the last 20 years, they have always scored at a faster rate than other Test match teams with Gilchrist being the key factor in executing that plan. Sehwag too has emulated this formula and India have tremendously benefited from this approach, as bowlers have been able to pick 20 wickets as they have been provided by more number of overs by Sehwag to finish off matches.
I feel media has focussed more on Sehwag's technique than on his achievements. At the end of the day what counts is not technique but results. According to me Sehwag is the only batsman in the history of Test Cricket, to have a batting average of 50+ and a strike rate of 75+ which makes him the greatest Test Match Winner of all time.
Regards
Satish
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