David Warner picks Rohit to break Lara's 400 not out Test record, recalls Sehwag's encouragement
Adelaide, Dec 1: Dashing Australian opener David Warner believes India's Rohit Sharma has the firepower to surpass West Indies great Brian Lara's record 400 not out in a Test match.
Warner, who scored his maiden triple ton (335) in five-day cricket during the ongoing second Test against Pakistan here, was just 65 runs shy of breaking Lara's record when skipper Tim Paine decided to declare the innings at 589/3.
Though he couldn't break the record, Warner believes it is possible to surpass the 400-mark and backed Rohit to achieve the feat in near future. Lara's 400 not out is the highest individual score in Test cricket which came against England in 2004.
"Yeah, look, I think it's about the person himself. We've got long boundaries, it is quite difficult at times. When fatigue sets in, it's very hard to try hard and throw your hands at it," Warner told 'Fox Sports'.
"At the end, I tried to run twos to lift the ante because I couldn't actually think like I could clear the ropes.
"I think, one day, if I've to name a player, I reckon it could be Rohit Sharma. Definitely."
Considered one of the best batsmen in ODI cricket, Rohit couldn't achieve much success in Tests initially but the Mumbaikar made a successful comeback to the longest format when he was included as an opener for the three-match series against South Africa.
As an opener in his first Test, Rohit scored twin-centuries against South Africa and was eventually named the Man of the Series.
Warner, who surpassed Sir Don Bradman's highest Test score of 334 during his unbeaten knock in the ongoing Day-night Test, also revealed that he had doubts about his Test career and it was former India opener Virender Sehwag, who had predicted that he would be a better Test batsman than a T20 cricketer.
"When I met Virender Sehwag while playing for Delhi in the IPL, he sat down to me and said I will be a better Test player than a Twenty 20 player. I said 'you're out of your mind, I've not played many first-class games'," Warner told reporters.
"He always said 'they will have slips and gully, covers open, mid-wicket stay there. mid-off and mid-on will be up, you can get off to a flier and sit there all day and you'll be picking them all off'.
"That's always stuck in my mind, it sounded very easy when we were discussing then."
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Shivaji Maharaj was 100% secular, the ultimate ideal king: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari
New Delhi, Apr 3 (PTI): Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has described Shivaji Maharaj as an exemplary king, a benevolent ruler, and a "100 per cent secular figure." He said if there is an ultimate ideal, it is undoubtedly Shivaji Maharaj.
Speaking at the launch of the book "The Wild Warfront - Shivaji Maharaj: Volume 2" by Vishwas Patil, Gadkari, who claimed that he has only one photograph in his office – that of Shivaji Maharaj -- said the Chhatrapati holds a special place in the hearts of Indians and is even more significant to him than his own parents.
"Nowadays, the word 'secular' is very popular, but the meaning of the word 'secular' in the English dictionary is not religious neutrality. The meaning of the word secular is 'equal respect for all religions,' treating all religions with equal justice. This is the meaning of secular. And Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was a public welfare king in our country’s history who was 100 per cent secular.
"Particularly throughout his history, he won many battles and never attacked a mosque... He always showed respect for women, was a king devoted to the people, and was strict in administration," Gadkari said to a packed audience at Maharashtra Sadan on Wednesday.
To emphasise his point about Shivaji being a secular and just king, Gadkari referenced the Battle of Pratapgarh, which took place on November 10, 1659, between the Maratha forces led by Shivaji Maharaj and the Bijapur troops under General Afzal Khan.
The 67-year-old lauded how, after killing Khan, Maharaj ordered his army — which he mentioned included many Muslim soldiers — to bury Khan with full respect at the battlefield -- Pratapgarh Fort.
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who was also present at the launch, said he was happy that Gadkari discussed the secular aspect of Shivaji Maharaj, a quality that, he argued, is often underappreciated, even by the Maharaj's own admirers.
According to the Lok Sabha MP of Thiruvananthapuram, it was Shivaji, who after many of his conquests, gave strict instructions to his soldiers that "if they ever came across a Quran, they should pick it up, treat it with respect until they could find a Muslim to hand it over to."
He added, "Those were the kind of values that Shivaji had. We all know about Shivaji's chivalry towards women, the extraordinary grace with which he dealt with the people, and the fact that his army consisted of people from every caste. Literally, every caste, from Dalit to Brahmin, was with him — around him, amongst his courtiers, and amongst his soldiers. He had Muslim soldiers. There was absolutely no bigotry in Shivaji."
Commending the book, which is Nadeem Khan's English translation of Patil's historical Marathi novel "Rankhaindal", Gadkari expressed hope that people now in India — those outside Maharashtra — and in Western countries would see a just picture of the king, as the history written during the Mughal era and British rule was unfair to him.
"... There were many things that were unfair to him, some even called him a 'lootera' (a bandit). I can say with full confidence that Shivaji's personality was complete, it was exceptional. In our current governance system, how a king should be, how a king should act, he is an example of that," he said.
Tharoor, too, congratulated the author for bringing his skill of "novelisation of history" to best use and able to pull off two volumes on Shivaji in fictional form, who he admits is an extraordinarily interesting figure to read about in any Indian language.
He seconded Gadkari saying that Shivaji has indeed come through various renderings in the national imagination -- from demonisation during the Mughal era to being hailed as "original Hindu nationalist" by freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
"We have had demonisation of him (Shivaji), as Gadkari ji reminded us of 'lootera,' a bandit, which was propagated by the partisans of the Mughal side. Then, we had the veneration of him as the great anti-colonial resistance figure, and this notion of resistance.
"You had different interpretations even within Maharashtra. Jyotiba Phule's interpretation of Shivaji as the voice of the subaltern, as the voice of the underclass rising up, versus, say, the Bal Gangadhar Tilak version of the original Hindu nationalist, portraying Shivaji as the origin of Hindu nationalism," explained the 69-year-old Congress leader.
Touted by publishing house Westland Books as the dazzling second volume of Patil's "The Wild Warfront", the book reconstructs Shivaji Maharaj's life and battles through intensive research.
Patil, known for his novels like "Ranangan", "Chandramukhi", "Panipat", and "Sambhaji", has sold over 50,000 copies of the two volumes in Marathi -- "Jhanjhawat" (The Whirlwind) and "Rankhaindal" (The Wild Warfront).
