On 23 June 2007, 20-year-old Rohit Gurunath Sharma wore the blue jersey of India for the first time in international cricket. The talented batsman from Mumbai played his first match against Ireland in Belfast. Since then, it has been a journey that started with a few initial hiccups ultimately turned into a magical career. Rohit was always touted to be the next big thing in Indian cricket.
The elegance of his batsmanship separated him from the rest from the very beginning. The world witnessed his talent for the very first time in the 2007 T20 world cup match. In a do or die encounter against hosts South Africa, Sharma produced a match-defining innings when he scored his maiden fifty. He helped India win a crucial match and was awarded the player of the match for his outstanding innings.
Rohit Sharma completes 13 years of international cricket
Then in the final against Pakistan, he delivered the knockout punch as his short but impactful innings took India to a competitive total. Sharma scored 30 off just 16 deliveries as India ultimately won the first-ever T20 world cup. This will forever be one of his most important innings as he delivered under extreme pressure.
His innings in the first final of the CB Series against Australia away from home also made him earn respect from all quarters. This was the first and the only time when he batted with his title in his career. Everyone knew he was different as he was playing fast bowling with ease and scoring all around the Sydney Cricket Ground. It seemed India has found yet another great batsman that will dominate world cricket.
But unfortunately, all of a sudden his career hit rock bottom and he got out cheaply in every innings. His struggle will continue for a good period of time and it looked as if he will permanently lose his spot in the side. A lot of credit needs to be given to his first India captain MS Dhoni who always backed him even when he wasn’t scoring runs. Dhoni gave him a long run and kept shuffling his batting position until he got right.
In the 2013 Champions Trophy in England, Rohit Sharma finally fulfilled his great potential. He started opening the innings and as they say, the rest is history. Rohit not only started scoring consistently but also made a habit of scoring daddy hundreds. Along with his opening partner Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit won countless matches for India in white-ball cricket.
Once he matured, he started understanding his game better and always focused on his strengths as a batsman. Captaincy of Mumbai Indians too helped his careers immensely as we saw another facet of his game. From then onwards, his career kept improving after every match and he finally became a world-class player.
Since 2014, nobody has made more hundreds than him in ODI cricket. He has the most hundreds in T20I cricket and has the second most runs. Last year in the World Cup in England, Rohit scored 5 hundred and created a world record. On top of that, he has 3 ODI double hundreds in his career a record that justifies what a special talent Rohit Sharma is with the bat in hand.
His overall record in international cricket :
Test 32 Matches 2142 runs 46.5 average 6 100s
ODI 224 Matches 9115 runs 49.3 average 29 100s
T20I 108 Matches 2773 runs SR 138.8 4 100s
Critics will argue that he still has to do some work as a Test batsman in his career. Rohit Sharma understands this and since the last year, he has improved drastically in the longest format of the game. The 33-year-old still has a good 5 years of cricket in him and he, along with his die-hard fans will be hoping that keeps breaking batting records.
To conclude, Rohit Sharma is without a shadow of doubt one of the great batsmen in the world today as he completes 13 years of international cricket.
