India skipper Rohit Sharma slammed Star Sports after the broadcaster flashed the statistic that his ton against New Zealand in Indore was his first in ODIs since January 2020.
“Regarding the first hundred in three years, I've played only 12 (17) ODIs in three years. Three years sounds a lot,” Rohit Sharma told reporters after India's 3-0 whitewash of New Zealand at the Holkar Stadium on Tuesday.
“You guys should know what's happening. I know that it was shown on broadcast but kabhi kabhi woh cheez bhi dhyan dena chahiye, broadcaster ko bhi sahi cheez dikhana chahiye (the broadcasters should give the correct picture),” he added.
When a reporter further asked him if his splendid knock against the Kiwis marked the comeback of the ‘Hitman', an epithet used for Rohit Sharam, he replied, “What sort of a comeback? I didn’t get it. Oh, someone must’ve told you! See, of those last three years, for eight months (in 2020), everyone was home. Where were the matches? Last year, we played only T20 cricket.”
“We were playing T20 cricket last year. And in T20 cricket, there's no better batsman than Suryakumar Yadav at the moment. He has hit two hundreds and I don't think anyone else has,” Rohit Sharma pointed out.
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 against New Zealand at the Holkar Stadium. 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.
Rohit Sharma’s sparkling hundred earned rave reviews from cricketer-turned-commentator Sanjay Manjrekar and former India pacer Irfan Pathan.
“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.
“He has taken full command of the Indian batting since he started opening, either through a good average or with the approach he has changed in the last one to one-and-a-half years – with a good strike rate. So he is continuously contributing. A century has come after three years and 10,000 runs will also come,” Irfan Pathan said.
“He has equalled Ricky Ponting's 30 ODI centuries. Even in his (Ponting's) country, he (Rohit) has an average of around 53, which is a huge number, and has scored five hundreds also there. He has an average of 64 in England as well. So he has scored runs everywhere and we have seen him scoring runs in India regularly in any case,” Irfan added.
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