New Delhi | Jagran Sports Desk: Virender Sehwag, only Indian to score two triple centuries in Test cricket, will celebrate his 42nd birthday on Tuesday. Also known as 'Nawab of Najafgarh', Sehwag is regarded as one of the most destructive batsmen to play cricket. In his glorious career, Viru played 104 Test and 251 ODIs, scoring 8,586 and 8,273 respectively. The former Indian opener had also played 19 T20Is, scoring 394 runs.
Sehwag, who also skippered the team several ODIs and Tests, is famous for his ability to outwit people on social media. The former Indian opener keeps entertaining his fans on Twitter with jokes and his on-point sense of humour. So as Virender Sehwag celebrates his 42nd birthday, here are some of the interesting facts about Viru you need to know:
* Sehwag calls himself a 'mumma's boy'. He says that his favourite food is 'kheer' made by his mother Krishna Sehwag.
* Sehwag says that he would have been a pharmacist had he not become a cricketer.
* Sehwag, who is regarded one of the most destructive openers of the game, is only the second Indian batsman after Sachin Tendulkar to score over 1,000 boundaries in Tests and ODIs.
* While Sehwag had a brilliant debut against South Africa at Bloemfontein where he scored a hundred, he was penalised only in his second game was handed a one-Test ban for showing dissent towards the umpire.
* The Sultan of Multan has won man of the match award of cricket 31 times. He is only behind Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly in this list.
* In April 2009, he became the first Indian to be honoured as the Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World. Interestingly, the 42-year-old is the only player of any nationality in the world to retain the award for 2009.
* While Sehwag played most of career as an opener, he was initially a middle-order batsman. It was only in 2002, Sourav Ganguly asked him to open the innings because of lack of space in the middle-order.
* During a Test match in 2003, Sehwag scored a brilliant 195 in Melbourne Cricket Ground. However, he missed the double hundred by just 5 runs when he tried to hit six over long-on. When asked about his missed double hundred, Sehwag said, "I only missed the six by 6 yards".
* Sehwag is only the fourth cricketer in the world after Australia's Don Bradman, West Indies' Brian Lara and Chris Gayle to scores two triple hundreds in Test cricket.
* He also holds the record for the fastest triple hundred (300 runs off 270 deliveries) in the Test cricket against South Africa.
* Sehwag once held the record for fastest ODI hundred for India. He then had scored a hundred in just 62 balls. His record, however, was broken by Virat Kohli in 2013.
* Another special thing about Viru is that he always had the knack of scoring big hundreds. He has converted his hundreds to 150 plus runs 11 times, which is itself a record.
* During the 2011 ODI World Cup, Sehwag started India's innings with a boundary on the first ball five times.
* Sehwag was awarded the award for ICC Test player of the year in 2010.
* Sehwag is the only captain in ODIs who has scored a double hundred. He achieved that feat against West Indies in 2011.