Rohit Sharma at 7000 vs top 5 run-scorers in ODI history: a statistical comparision
Rohit Sharma is at present the captain of the Indian team in the Asia Cup, and has been leading the team brilliantly. In the ongoing tournament, he crossed the 7000 run mark in ODIs and became the 4th fastest player in ODI history to reach that mark.
Sharma was initially thought of as a talent who could never perform to his potential. He finished the first half of his decade-long cricket career as an underperforming talent and was a huge flop in the first 5 years of his international career.
His poor performance continued right till the 2013 Champions Trophy, which proved to be the turning point in his career. Dhoni decided to promote Rohit to open the batting for the Indian team as the team was struggling with openers and he wanted to give Rohit a longer rope in ODIs.
Rohit has not looked back ever since that tournament, going from strength to strength. He has gone on to become an extremely successful opener for the Indian team and is well poised to go past the likes of Ganguly and Sehwag to become India's second most successful opener in terms of both runs and centuries.
While he is at a good position compared to Indian greats, this article aims to answer as to how high he would rank in terms of the world's best batsmen and where he could finish on the chart for the highest run scorers in ODIs at the end of his career.
#5) Mahela Jayawardene (12,650 Runs)
Mahela Jayawardene is the fifth highest run scorer in ODI history and a player who is very similar to Rohit Sharma. Both players are elegant and are a treat to watch when in full flow.
Jayawardene has scored 12650 runs in 448 ODIs over his 17 years long career. He was phenomenal for the Lankan team and has the highest ODI caps to his name from Sri Lanka. He has the second highest number of caps in ODIs and that is one of the major reasons for his name being present in the list.
Rohit ranks way ahead of Jayawardene in terms of the number of innings and in terms of the number of years taken to reach 7000 ODI runs. Rohit took 181 innings to reach the mark whereas Jayawardene took 235 to reach the milestone.
Rohit might be well ahead of Jayawardene in terms of time taken to reach important milestones but in terms of crossing Jayawardene's total runs tally Rohit would have to keep going the way he has been going for the next 5 years to become World's 5th highest Run getter in ODIs.