5 batsmen whose careers saw a downslide towards the end

#5 Virender Sehwag

Virender Sehwag suffered a rusty end to a brilliant career

Virender Sehwag turned the stereotype of the watchful opening batsman on its head. There have been few more exhilarating boundary hitters in the game than Sehwag. He has scored the second highest proportion of Test runs in boundaries (63.80%) after Chris Gayle (66.15%).

A batsman possessing unbelievable hand-eye coordination, Sehwag made the most of it to plunder boundaries and bend the bowlers to his will. But much like Richards, when such instinctive abilities start to fade away, a downfall is imminent.

Amidst the fiasco of his much-publicized rift with Dhoni, it was Sehwag’s form that suffered the most. Starting from Dec’10 until his ill-fated final series, vs Australia (2013), Sehwag only scored 1 century in his the 20 Tests he played, averaging a paltry 28.77.

Span	Matches	Inns	n.o.	Runs	H.S.	Ave	100s	50s
3 Nov’01 – 20 Nov’10	84	144	6	7550	319	54.71	22	26
16 Dec’10 – 02 Mar’13	20	36	0	1036	117	28.77	1	6
Career	104	180	6	8586	319	49.34	23	32