3 batsmen who started their ODI career in the middle order but were more successful at the top of the order

ODI Cricket is the most popular and played format in the International arena of the game. 2 of the biggest cricketing events in the world, the ICC Cricket World Cup and the Champions Trophy are played in the ODI format. India and England seem like the best teams in this format. They have a few of the best batsmen in the world including the likes of Virat Kohli and Joe Root.

Incidentally two of the batsmen on this list are from England and India. Not every batsman gets to bat at his favorite position, especially when he is an inexperienced player and there are better options for that position. They need to grind it out before getting to bat at their favorite position. Here we look at 3 players who had to play in the middle order before shifting to the top where, they were more successful.

Rohit Sharma

The Hit-man is one of the best batsmen in the world. He is the only player to have scored 3 double hundreds in the ODI format. His highest score of 264 is unimaginable and such a score is hard to get even in a Test match. He started his ODI career about 11 years ago and played in the middle order for 5 years with little success. The substantial scores that he got came against weak oppositions.

He has scored 6594 runs in 174 innings throughout his career at an average of 44.55 and a strike rate of 86.96. He has scored 4747 runs in 104 innings at a strike rate of 90 and an average of 50.5 at the top of the order (positions 1,2 and 3). Compared to that he has scored 1847 runs in 70 innings at a paltry strike rate of 79 and averaged 34.2 while batting in the middle order.

There is a difference of 16.3 between both the averages and 11 in the strike rates.