IPL journey of India's 'Fabulous 5' and stark similarities with their international careers

Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Virender Sehwag, famously known as the 'Fabulous 5' of Indian cricket team had an IPL journey very similar to their international careers.

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IPL journey of India's 'Fabulous 5' and stark similarities with their international careers
Virender Sehwag(L), Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly (Courtesy- VVS Laxman Instagram)

In Short

  • VVS Laxman played the least number of IPL matches among the lot
  • Rahul Dravid scored at brisk rate in the shortest format to prove critics wrong
  • Sachin and Sehwag only IPL centurions from the lot

India as a cricket crazy nation worships its cricketers and that is the reason why some of the masters of the game also get that demigod status.

The golden era of Indian cricket has long been anticipated, some think we are still waiting for it while other like Team India coach Ravi Shastri assert that we are already going through that phase.

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Some 10 to 15 years ago, there was no public announcement that declared India as the best travelling team but the stalwarts of the game had no disagreement in admitting that Indian batting line-up was something which made them awestruck.

Three batmen between the 'God of cricket' to the 'Wall of cricket, began to be called the 'fabulous 5' of Indian cricket.

Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Virender Sehwag were a dread force to reckon, each one of them having the capacity to single-handedly win the game for India.

In 2008, with the arrival of cricket the fab-5 of India had to part ways for their respective as they were named 'Icon' players for their respective cities(VVS Laxman gave up Icon status later). For fan it wasn't a bad news at all because they had never seen their demigods turn out against each other.

The whole IPL set-up was new, in fact had caught fire in the nation a year ago, when Indian won the inaugural edition.

The IPL journey for these 5 gems turned out to be different, just like their batting style but had some similarities like their respective international careers.

VVS Laxman

The very, very special special VVS Laxman in his playing days steered India to so many victories and also stayed on the crease for so many long hours to salvage a draw. The Test format suited him the most and that is the reason why he played 134 Tests but only 86 ODIs. It would be hard to digest that a legend like him failed to play a single World Cup for the nation.

First ever match of IPL history was played on April 18, while Laxman has last played an ODI in 2006. The wristy genius was named the 'Icon' player for Deccan Chargers but gave the status so that franchise gets a bigger purse to accommodate players.

The right-handed legend captained Deccan Chargers in the first 6 matches and handed the captaincy to Adam Gilchrist.

In 2011 he was bought by newly-former Kochi Tuskers, but there too he got injured in the very young stage of the tournament. The Hyderabad-born went unsold in the 2012 edition of IPL and that marked the end of his 20-match old IPL career in which he scored 282 runs. Just like his limited over career in international cricket, Laxman couldn't do much in the IPL too.

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VVS Laxman current is the mentor of IPL side Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Rahul Dravid

The 'Wall' of Indian cricket Rahul Dravid most probably had the worst phase of his career when an Indian side led by home exited from the group stage of 2007 World Cup.

His record in limited-over cricket looks as good as his Test record but somewhere he is not given due credit for that. He ended up scoring over 10,000 runs in both the formats.

But, the most interesting fact about 'Test-specialist' Dravid's career is that he played only 1 T20I and smashed 3 consecutive sixes in it to end up scoring 31 runs at an strike rate of 147.61.

When it comes to IPL, he was named the captain and 'Icon' player of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the 1st edition. He won 4 out of 14 matches in 2008. That was the only season when he captained RCB. On the batting front, he scored 371 runs at an average of almost 28 and strike rate of 124.49.

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In the next 2 seasons with RCB he scored 271 and 256, respectively before moving to Rajasthan Royals (RR) in 2011.

Rahul Dravid captained RR in 40 matches from 2012 to 2013, winning 23 and losing 17 of them. In terms of the winning percentage he is the most successful skipper of RR after Steve Smith, who has captained in just 13 matches.

While batting for the Jaipur-based franchise, Rahul Dravid scored over 300 runs each time. In 2013, when Rajasthan Royals qualified for the plays for the first-time after 2008, Dravid ended up scoring 471 runs including 4 fifties. He finished as the 9th highest-run scorer in 2013 edition and shared the elite list with some of most destructive T20 cricketers.

Later that year Dravid led RR to the finals of Champions League T20 and lost to Mumbai Indians in final and this meant that like his international career he failed to put his hand on a major trophy in his T20 caeer too. Overall, he scored 2,174 runs from 89 IPL matches at an strike rate of 115.52.

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Rahul Dravid, later coached RR and Delhi Capitals and is currently the head of National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru.

Sourav Ganguly

The 'Prince of Kolkata' and the man who taught to fight and survive against toughest of competitors had a roller-coaster ride in IPL, just like he had it in his international career.

Sourav Ganguly lost his captaincy in Team India and then lost his place in the squad, likewise in IPL Sourav Ganguly being the 'Icon' player of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), played the 1st season as captain but was dropped from captaincy the next edition.

Despite his good individual performance where the former left-hand batsman aggregated 348 runs at an average of 29.08, KKR finished 6th in the inaugural edition. The following year Brendon McCullum took the captaincy as KKR finished last.

In 2010, Sourav Ganguly again retained the captaincy and smashed 493 runs at a staggering average of 37.92, finished as 4th highest run-getter but his team ended up 6th again. The following year Ganguly had to leave his hometown franchise and move to Pune warriors where he was appointed as the captain-cum-mentor the following year.

Overall, former India captain Ganguly featured in 59 IPL matches, scoring 1,349 runs at an average of 106.81.

Sourav Ganguly, still continues to be a central figure in India cricket and is now holding the position of BCCI president.

Virender Sehwag

When T20 format arrived Virender Sehwag would have been the most happiest and most thrilled batsman, his style of play was tailor maid for him.

The 'Nawab of Najafgarh' was the 'Icon' player of Delhi Daredevils (Delhi Capitals now). In his 8-year long IPL career, Sehwag played 6 years for Delhi and then 2 years for Kings XI Punjab (KXIP). He captained Delhi for 4 editions (2009,2009,2011,2012).

Virender Sehwag led Delhi to 3 playoffs and scored 2,174 runs for Delhi in 79 matches. While playing for Punjab under George Bailey he slammed a ton in 2014 edition of IPL in which he amassed 455 runs. His 122 off 58 balls against Chennai Super Kings fast-tracked Punjab into the final of that edition.

In his last playing year in IPL, Virender Sehwag scored 99 runs in 8 matches. Same, was the case with his glorious Test career which ended abruptly with a string of low scores

Later Virender Sehwag became a mentor of the franchise and left the the job in 2018. Currently, he has taken commentary assignments.

Overall, in 104 IPL matches Sehwag scored 2,728 runs at an average of 155.44.

Sachin Tendulkar

The final chapter of the fabulous 5 company Sachin Tendulkar also known as the Master Blaster and "The God of Cricket' by some played 78 IPL matches and scored 2,334 runs at a strike rate of 119.82 from May 14, 2008 to May 13, 2013.

'Icon' player for Mumbai Indians Sachin Tendulkar captained the team until 2011 IPL. In his 55 matches as captain, Sachin led his team to 32 wins. Tendulkar is the only batsman other than Sehwag to have scored an IPL hundred in this fab-5 group.

The talismanic batsman escorted his team to the final of 2010 IPL edition and won the Orange Cap in the process by scoring 618 runs at an average of 47.53. Though, Mumbai Indians succumbed to Chennai Super Kings in the final, Sachin had the privilege of winning Champions League T20 under the leadership of Rohit Sharma later that year.

In his last IPL edition, Sachin Tendulkar played under his contemporary Ricky Ponting. In 2014, the Indian legend was named Mumbai Indians 'Team Icon'.

Sachin Tendulkar in his playing days was the most important man in the team even without being the captain, the trend continues as the genius batsman still steals the show whenever he comes on the giant screen while sitting in the dugout of Mumbai Indians and mentoring the young colts.