Rohit Sharma – The Bradman of White Ball Cricket

Rohit Sharma - The Bradman of White Ball Cricket !©ICC

Sir Don Bradman was known for scoring ‘daddy’ hundreds. His hunger never stopped after scoring a century, and that’s whey he went on to score 12 double hundreds in Test which includes two triple centuries and one score of 299. The Indian opener Rohit Sharma is no different from Bradman, just the format is different, and he is not only scoring big but regularly just like Sir Don used to.

Virat Kohli may have more runs, and hundreds than Rohit Sharma in ODIs and most of Virat fans will disagree with Bradman comparison, but Rohit Sharma has been phenomenal in white ball cricket over the past eight years.

Ever since Rohit opened the innings for India in ODIs and smashed his first double hundred in 2013 against Australia, he never looked back in white ball cricket. Rohit has broken many ODI records and is on the verge of breaking many more in the current world cup.

Rohit has an unmatched flair in his batting; he is a magician with the bat. In the last few years, he has been as good as Virat in white ball cricket and not only he keeps scoring runs, he has a habit of scoring them big. With the sweet timing from his bat, balls generally land outside the boundary rope in limited overs cricket.

https://twitter.com/ImRo45/status/12342427911?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Rohit was dropped from the Indian squad of World Cup in 2011 and Kohli got the chance to play his first World Cup that year. In 2019, Rohit has smashed many batting records of a Cricket World Cup and is on the verge of breaking the remaining ones.

On Saturday, Rohit brought up his 5th hundred of World Cup 2019. No other batsman in the history of ODI cricket has scored five centuries in one single tournament. He is only 27 runs short of breaking Tendulkar’s record (673) of most runs in a World Cup edition. He is also just one century away from breaking the record of most number of hundreds in World Cups. Tendulkar took 44 innings to score 6 World Cup hundreds, Rohit has taken only 16.

Most Runs in World Cup 2019

Player Inns NO Runs HS Ave SR 100 50 4s 6s
Rohit 8 1 647 140 92.42 98.77 5 1 67 14
Warner 9 1 638 166 79.75 89.48 3 3 64 8
Shakib 8 1 606 124* 86.57 96.03 2 5 60 2
Finch 9 0 507 153 56.33 102.21 2 3 47 18
Root 9 1 500 107 62.5 91.74 2 3 40 2
Williamson 7 2 481 148 96.2 77.2 2 1 42 3
Babar Azam 8 1 474 101* 67.71 87.77 1 3 50 2
Bairstow 9 0 462 111 51.33 97.26 2 2 55 11
Kohli 8 1 442 82 63.14 95.05 0 5 38 2
du Plessis 8 2 387 100 64.5 89.58 1 3 36 4

Rohit has smashed 232 sixes in just 208 ODI innings, he and Gayle are the only batsmen in ODI cricket to have more sixes than innings.

Rohit is also the only player to have an average of more than 50 every single year since 2013. He is also the only visiting batsman to score 12 ODI hundreds in England (7) and Australia (5) combined.

Since January 2015, Rohit has scored 22 ODI hundreds, more than any player. Virat has 20 while Warner has 15 centuries since then. Rohit has 3 ODI double hundreds when no other batsman could score it twice. He also holds the record for the most number of 150 plus score in ODI – 7.

Rohit scored 209 against Australia in 2013, 264 against Sri Lanka in 2014, 150 against South Africa in 2015, 171* against Australia in 2016, 208* against Sri Lanka in 2017, 162 against West Indies in 2018, all these scores were the highest individual score by an Indian in the mentioned years. In 2019, Rohit’s highest score in ODI is 140 against Pakistan at Old Trafford, Dhawan’s 143 against Australia is the highest for India in 2019.

Rohit also has a chance of breaking Tendulkar’s record in a calendar year. Sachin Tendulkar scored 1894 runs with 9 ODI hundreds in 1998, Rohit has scored 1203 runs with six centuries so far in 2019. The kind of form he is in it shouldn’t be difficult for Rohit to break this record as well. India will play a minimum of 7 ODIs in the remaining year. A semi-final (probably a final too) and 3 ODIs against West Indies in their den after the World cup and again 3 ODIs against West Indies in home series.

Rohit’s domination doesn’t stop at ODIs only; he has mindblowing records in T20 International cricket as well. Rohit has the most number of runs in T20 International cricket. He is the only player to score four T20 International Hundreds. He is four hits away from breaking Gayle’s record of most sixes (105) in T20 Internationals.

Rohit Sharma will have all the ODI and T20I records on his name whenever he will decide to hang the boots.

Ritesh: Cricket enthusiast, Tendulkar fan and a traveler  !