I am grateful to Ganguly: Sehwag

Indian batsman Virender Sehwag on Sunday expressed his gratitude to Sourav Ganguly, saying it was the former skipper who instilled confidence in him by giving him the opportunity to open the innings.

"I shall always be grateful to Sourav. He was the one who brought me up from middle-order to open the innings. He told me that if I don't perform as an opener then I will be shifted to the middle-order," Sehwag said, when asked about the turning point of his career.

The Delhi dasher cracked a blistering 293 in the third and final Test against Sri Lanka to help India win the match and wrap up the series 2-0 in Mumbai on Sunday.

Sehwag's 254-ball innings bagged him the man-of-the-match and the player of the series and helped India become the No 1 Test side in the world.

Sehwag, who has two triple centuries in his name, ranked his 293-run innings as his third best knock of his career.

"This will be the third best of my knocks. I wasn't thinking anything, my mind was very blank; I waited for a while. I just waited for the bad balls. In the dressing room they were saying I was hitting the good balls too but when you look at from my point of view, I was just hitting the bad balls!" he said.