Rohit Sharma triggered a meme fest on Twitter after the India skipper ended his 1101-day century drought in ODIs against New Zealand on Tuesday.

 

Rohit Sharma's 101-run innings off 85 deliveries was his first international hundred across formats after 509 days and his first in ODIs since January 2020.

The last time Rohit Sharma made a century in any format of international cricket was in September 2021 when he reached the three-figure mark in the Oval Test against England. Since then, he had gone 53 innings without a ton, making 1555 runs with 12 fifties.

Laced by nine fours and six sixes, Rohit Sharma raced through to the landmark at the Holkar Stadium, finally bringing an end to his three-year wait for a 50-over hundred.

En route to his ton against the Tom Lathan-led side, the India captain also equaled Australian legend Ricky Ponting's record of 30 ODI hundreds in Indore.

With Rohit Sharma joining Ricky Ponting to become the third-highest century scorer in ODIs, only two men stand ahead of him – Sachin Tendulkar (49) and Virat Kohli (46).

Alongside Ricky Ponting, Rohit Sharma now is the joint third-highest century-scorer in One-Day Internationals.

However, Rohit Sharma's heroics in Madhya Pradesh were overshadowed by his opening partner Shubman Gill.

Continuing his outstanding form in the 50-over format, Shubman Gill smashed his fourth ODI century in the third and final game of the three-match series against New Zealand at the Holkar Stadium in Indore. This was also his second ton in the series against the Black Caps following his blistering double hundred in the first match in Hyderabad last week.

For the unversed, this was Shubman Gill's third three-figure score in his last four ODIs after hitting 116 against Sri Lanka in the final ODI and 208 against the Kiwis in the series opener.

En route to his explosive innings of 112 off 78 balls, Shubman Gill matched Babar Azam's record of scoring the most runs in a three-match ODI series. With scores of 208, 40, and 112, the 23-year-old cricketer notched 360 runs in three games against the Tom Latham-led side, thus putting himself on par with Babar Azam.

On his part, Babar Azam had scored the same amount of runs against the West Indies in 2016.

Among other records that Shubman Gill created in Madhya Pradesh was going past Shikhar Dhawan's feat to become the fastest to four centuries in ODIs. While Shikhar Dhawan needed 24 knocks to get there, the Fazilka-born player achieved it in 21 innings.

Shubman Gill bettered Virat Kohli to become the first Indian to score at least 300 runs in a three-match ODI bilateral series. Previously, Virat Kohli held the record with his tally of 283 runs against Sri Lanka earlier this month.

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Gill was aggressive from the outset, taking the New Zealand bowlers on from ball one. With loads of runs behind him in recent memory, the youngster started hitting the ball with brute force right from the start of the Indian innings, taking almost every New Zealand bowler to the cleaners.

Continuing with his splendid run, the India batter cruised to his half-century in just 33 deliveries, before reaching his fourth ODI hundred sometime later. His knock of 112 was laced with 13 boundaries and five huge sixes.

Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill combined to give India their best opening stand against New Zealand in Indore. The duo was involved in a mammoth 212-run partnership for the first wicket.

India put up a massive total of 385/9 on the board, thanks to a dominant display of batting from Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma.

In reply, New Zealand could only manage to score 295, thus losing the match by 95 runs. With this India also claimed a second consecutive clean sweep in 2023, following their 3-0 defeat of Sri Lanka earlier this month.

Meanwhile, Rohit Sharma's sparkling hundred earned rave reviews from cricketer-turned-commentator Sanjay Manjrekar.

“I like this Rohit Sharma, in this T20s as well. This is the way to play. 100s have to be incidental, they have to be the byproduct of the way which you play and when India sets a platform like that, despite a collapse, India had a lot of runs on the board. This is the Rohit Sharma I like,” Sanjay Manjrekar told Star Sports after the match.

“New Zealand were missing three or four key players, but that does not take anything away from India, especially tonight where they lost the toss,” Sanjay Manjrekar added.

“India put the runs on the board, so much so that it almost makes the opposition chase the total down despite the dew advantage. This is something that you can keep looking at and enjoy,” the ex-India batter concluded.