India's five best openers till date
From Krishnamachari Srikkanath to Navjot Singh Sidhu and then Gautam Gambhir, India have, over the years, been blessed with some of the best and most explosive openers. They are but a part of a tradition which has seen the Indian team always take the field with the best and biggest names when it came to opening the innings.
Opening in Tests is quite different from doing it in ODIs and T20s, but India have always had specialists for each occasion, with some notable exceptions who have done well across all formats. The name of Shikhar Dhawan comes to mind.
Openers are of paramount importance in cricket as they not only give the team a solid start but also take the game quickly away from the opposition. It is thanks to some of these great openers that India have enjoyed immense success across all formats of the game.
Let us look at five of India's best openers across all formats of the game.
#5 Rohit Sharma
Rohit Sharma started out as just another young, talented middle-order batsman. But he was not consistent enough and his career struggled to take off. It was then that the decision to promote him to the top of the order was made which proved to be a masterstroke.
Sharma partnered Dhawan at the top in the 2013 Champions Trophy in England where the pair was immensely successful. Rohit has not had to look back since, as he has enjoyed the responsibility at the top of the order, playing freely and scoring big runs for his team.
He registered his individual best of 264 against Sri Lanka in 2014, which is also the highest score in ODIs till date. That also gave him the rare distinction of being the only cricketer to score two ODI double hundreds, the first one coming against Australia in 2013.
Sharma has amassed 5435 ODI runs at an average of 42.46 with 11 centuries and 31 half-centuries till date. He is also a successful T20I opener having scored 1364 runs with 1 century and 11 half centuries.