Indian cricket is blessed to have had opening batters setting the game on fire with their batting exploits. Openers play an important role in setting the tone and platform of the team.
They are mainly responsible for making use of the powerplay overs. If they score runs at a rate of knots, then the team heads in the right direction with a view to posting a humongous total on the board.
Indian cricket has witnessed many openers making a name for themselves in international cricket. In this article, we will now take a look at the five Indian openers with the most runs in international cricket.
1. Virender Sehwag
Virender Sehwag was one of the best-attacking openers in the world during the playing days of his cricketing career. The Nawab of Najafgarh comes first on the list in terms of scoring the most runs as an Indian opener in international cricket. Sehwag aggregated 16,119 runs to his name as an opener.
2. Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Tendulkar is the leading run-scorer in the history of Tests and One-Day Internationals. The Little Master aggregated 15335 runs as an opener for India in international cricket.
3. Rohit Sharma
Rohit Sharma is currently the best opener in the world across all three formats of the game. He kick-started his career as a middle-order batsman in the initial years of his career before he was promoted to an opener and there was no turning back since then. Rohit Sharma scored 12,930 runs for India as an opener and is 70 runs away from becoming the third Indian opener to score 13,000 runs in international cricket.
4. Sunil Gavaskar
Sunil Gavaskar comes fourth on the list of scoring the most runs as an opener for India in international cricket. The former Indian cricketer scored 12,258 runs to his name.
5. Shikhar Dhawan
Shikhar Dhawan was one of the best-attacking openers for India. He played a fearless brand of cricket with superb shot selection. He aggregated 10867 runs as an opener for India in international cricket.
