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“I Never Feared Facing Brett Lee, But With Shoaib Akhtar, I Could Not Trust What He Would Do” : Virender Sehwag Talks About His Batting Fear Against Shoaib Akhtar

Former Indian Attacking Opener Virender Sehwag has delineated his batting fear, while facing the fastest pacer in the world, ‘Shoaib Akhtar’. Viru has been involved in dozens of funny and also heated banters on many occasions before with Shoaib. But he described his wise shot-making against the vicious pace of Shoaib Akhtar, which became more deadly when he was in a rage. Sehwag had his best days of batting against Pakistan in the year 2003-04 and 2005-06 when team India toured Pakistan for Odi and Test matches.

“I never feared facing Brett Lee, but with Shoaib Akhtar, I could not trust”.

The most heated on-field moment between the two greats was in the Ind vs Pak Odi match in the year 2006. Where, Shoaib had plated two sharp bouncers to Sehwag, which he sent to the fence over the third man. This made Akhtar so much angry and which resulted in abusive talks between the both. Thus while giving an interview to Sports18, Virender Sehwag mentioned his long legacy with the Pakistani star pacer. He said, “I never feared facing Brett Lee, but with Shoaib Akhtar, I could not trust what he would do if I hit him twice to the fence. Maybe a beamer or a toe-crushing yorker”.

“He  is my boundary bowler and his deliveries would come swinging into your body, even if he bowled outside off stump”. The Nawab of Najafgarh added, “Australia’s pace spearhead Brett Lee and Pakistan’s Shoaib Akhtar were the other two who were the quickest bowlers which I faced”.

Later he mentioned his batting approach by telling that, “Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly all would score their centuries playing 150-200 balls. If I scored hundreds at the same rate, no one would remember me. I had to score runs faster than them to create my identity,” he concluded.

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