Virender Sehwag becomes fifth Indian to cross 8000 runs in Tests

Dashing opener Virender Sehwag played a superb knock of 67 in 83 balls today to set up a strong reply for India chasing Australia’s first innings total of 333 in the First Test at Melbourne. Well in the course of his wonderful half-century, Virender Sehwag crossed a milestone in his career, going past 8000 runs in his Test Career.

It was in the 11^th over of the Indian innings that Sehwag picked a single flicking Peter Siddle on the backfoot to fine leg to reach 8000 Test runs. Only four other Indian batsmen have gone past this milestone before Sehwag. The first to reach it was Sunil Gavaskar followed up by Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman.

Sehwag who scored a Century on Test Debut against South Africa in Bloemfontein in 2001 has taken 93 Tests and 160 innings to reach the 8000 Test runs. Unfortunately for India, amongst the current lot of players, Gautam Gambhir is the leading run scorer for India and that too with just over 3500 runs! Of course, four out of the five players to cross 8000 runs are still very much in the Indian team.

Here is the list of the top 10 run scorers for India in Tests till date :