4 Indian stalwarts who owe their careers to Sourav Ganguly

#1 Virender Sehwag

Sehwag after his marathon innings of 309 at Multan

It was in Sri Lanka, that Ganguly went to a struggling Sehwag and asked him to open the batting in one-day cricket, in a group-stage clash against New Zealand, a do-or-die encounter for India, to stay in the tournament.

With Tendulkar sitting out with an injury, Ganguly felt the time was ripe to introduce an idea to the players and the coach that had been doing rounds in his head for a fairly long time. Sehwag, who had had a modest start to his ODI career, with 169 runs from 14 ODIs at an average of 15.36, reacted to Ganguly's proposal with reluctance.

He was apprehensive of facing the new ball, and more significantly, scared of failure. This is where Ganguly, the captain, came to the fore. He assured Sehwag of a fair run at the top as well as in the middle order if things did not pan out well in the ongoing tournament.

The result was immediately evident when Sehwag scored a 70-ball 100, hitting his second ball for four, with arrogant disdain and impervious swag.

The first hour in a day's play outside the Subcontinent always belongs to the bowlers. But Ganguly's thinking was different. He spotted merit in only taking control of the match from ball one, and dictating terms to the opposition.

Sehwag gave an ample opportunity for doing this. He would either flash his bat at the first ball and go back to the dugout to recline on his couch, or he could get your team to 80-0 after 15 overs. That was what Hayden and Langer were doing at the same time for Australia. That was exactly what Ganguly wanted.

To get a clearer view of the risk involved, Sehwag had never opened the batting ever in his life - even in a List A match. Understandably sceptical, he was greatly opposed to the idea of opening in England, but Ganguly, for the uncanny chiromancer he is, convinced Sehwag of his spot in the XI and inveigled him to open the batting.

Numbers tell you only half the story, but here are some interesting stats:

Sehwag has 7518 runs opening the batting in ODI cricket at an average of 36.50 and a strike rate of 104 (which was unthinkable in the pre-T20 era), and 8586 runs in Test cricket at the top of the order, averaging 49.34 and striking at 82.11.