Five instances when Rohit Sharma helped India chase down challenging targets in ODIs
When it comes to the ODI cricket format, Rohit Sharma has a reputation of scoring a number of his centuries while batting first. While most of those centuries were in match-winning causes, the Mumbaikar has also been equally impressive in second innings. He has accumulated 4570 runs and scored 11 tons when India have chased.
His latest effort — an unbeaten 122 against South Africa in India's opening game of the 2019 World Cup — was rated highly by captain Virat Kohli too as the latter put his foot down and went about his job meticulously. The century also takes Sharma to joint-fourth among ODI centurions in chases along with Tillakaratne Dilshan. Virat Kohli (25 tons), Sachin Tendulkar (17) and Chris Gayle (12) are the three batsmen ahead of Sharma.
The speciality of the innings was the way Sharma was willing to bide his time and play out the difficult overs. With wickets falling around him and the required run-rate slowly creeping up, Sharma did well to ensure that he stayed at the crease and got the team across the line in the end.
With Virat Kohli applauding Rohit Sharma's effort to get India's World Cup campaign off to a positive start, Sharma will hold the key to India's success in the upcoming games as well.
Here, in this slider, we have a look at five of Rohit Sharma's best innings in ODI cricket that helped India chase down tricky targets in the past.
#5 141* against Australia, Jaipur, 2013
India were set a humongous target of 360 by Australia in second ODI of the bilateral series back in 2013. Rohit Sharma was certainly not his free-flowing self but he did well to pummel the Aussie bowling attack to score an unbeaten 141 off 123 balls and help India win at a canter with 39 balls to spare and for the loss of one wicket. In the process, he smashed 17 fours and four sixes.
There might not have been much in the pitch for the bowlers but to chase down such a huge target six years back was quite a task. In the beginning of India’s innings, Rohit decided to play second fiddle as Shikhar Dhawan went ballistic. However, he picked up the mantle of peppering the boundaries once his opening partner departed.