Virender Sehwag, who retired from all forms of international cricket in October, was felicitated by the BCCI before the fourth and final Test match between India and South Africa at Feroz Shah Kotla on Thursday.
BCCI members, including secretary Anurag Thakur, were present during the formal procedure. The swashbuckling opener was handed with a silver plaque to honour his achievements.
Apart from the plaque, the tow ends of his home ground -- Feroz Shah Kotla -- have been named as 319 and 309, which were the two three figures scores in his international Test career. Sehwag scored 309 and 319 against Pakistan (2004) and South Africa (2008) respectively.
Sehwag is the only India batsmen to have scored a triple century, which is a huge feat in itself and to make it more special, he has achieved this (300 runs) feat twice.
Though Sehwag wanted to finish his career playing in front of his home crowd, cricket fans in India will be pleased that the batsman was, at least, appreciated for his contribution to India cricket as he was one of the best batsmen the nation ever produced.
Sehwag, who formed the core batting line up, with Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly took India cricket to greater heights. The Delhi lad thanked these players during the felicitation.
"I would like to thank all my captains, friends and coaches who have helped me to reach where I am. A big thanks to Ganguly, Dravid and Tendulkar for moulding me in my career," he said.
Sehwag scored 8586 Test runs, 8273 ODI runs and 394 T20I runs under his belt and it is the manner -- thrashing bowlers all round the park -- in which he scored these runs, which is etched in cricket fans' memory all over the world.
This felicitation in Delhi was quite similar to the one, which was given by BCCI to Zaheer Khan during the fifth and final India vs South Africa ODI in Mumbai at the Wankhede Stadium.
