LAHORE: Former Pakistan captain Rashid Latif has lavished praise on Virender Sehwag, saying the former Indian opener was a fearless cricketer who had a great influence in the team.
"He used to play to dominate. We are used to openers who were a bit circumspect at the beginning, gauging how the pitch is, who the bowler is whether (Glenn) McGrath, Brett Lee, Wasim Akram or Shoaib Akhtar,"Latif said in a Youtube show called 'Caught Behind'.
"But Sehwag was someone who feared none. He was an impactful player, had a great influence in his team and players like him succeed in world cricket," he added.
Latif, who played 37 Tests and 166 ODIs for Pakistan, further said that contrary to popular belief that Sehwag did not have a good foot movement, the former Indian opener had a unique technique which helped him dominate the bowlers.
"It's wrong to say his feet didn't move. He had unique technique with a very strong base. He was superb on the backfoot, used to cut, pull, hook with ease," said Latif.
"He had beautiful balance. People say that he had limited feet movement but that was perhaps the reason why he was so successful. And coaches nowadays have started to say that keep your balance with minimum foot movement," he added.
Sehwag represented India in 104 Tests, 251 ODIs and 19 T20Is in which he scored 8586, 8273 and 394 runs respectively. IANS