Finally Sehwag gets his due

India's Virender Sehwag has finally been chosen as the number 1 batsman in test cricket. This was something Sehwag should have achieved long back, the moment he scored his second triple hundred against South Africa last year in the 1st test. Since then and even before that, Sehwag has never looked back whatsoever atleast as far as test cricket is considered. I wonder whether there has been any batsman in test cricket who has scored double hundreds in the frequency with which Sehwag has been doing since 2008 after the feat against Sri Lanka where he scored a double hundred in the 2nd test at Galle?

Sehwag has no 6 double hundreds against his name which is the highest ever by any Indian batsman. Rahul Dravid, who has 5 double hundreds against his name scored his second double ton against New Zealand in late 2003 where he scored 222 runs in the game that was drawn. Dravid scored 3 of his 5 double tons in a span of six months when he scored 233 against Australia at Adelaide followed by 270 against Pakistan three months later. And, it took V V S Laxman almost 8 years before he scored his second double hundred against Australia in the B-G trophy 2008-09.

And when it comes to Sachin Tendulkar who has most of the batting records in international cricket but this one, has one of his double hundred scored against 248* which is coincidentally his highest individual score in test cricket. This was way back in 2005 which is close to 5 years since he has crossed the 200 run mark in tests. The recent double hundreds include only the ones by V V S Laxman and Gambhir in the Border-Gavaskar trophy 2008-09 excluding Sehwag's. Likewise, Sehwag has scored 3 double hundreds, twice against Sri Lanka and once against South Africa which went on to become a triple hundred.

Dravid was aged above 30 when he scored his 5^th double hundred and so was Tendulkar when he scored his 4^th against Bangladesh. Despite all these feats that keep Sehwag apart from the rest, he had to compromise the number one position in test cricket with someone like Gautam Gambhir for all these years. I bet that Sehwag is the only player who has 6 double hundreds against his name, all of them scored within a span of 6 years from 2004 (when he scored his 1st double triple hundred against Pakistan at Multan) till date. Added to these is the strike rates that he has maintained when scoring these double hundreds.