Who said what: Cricket world praises Rohit Sharma's record-breaking innings and India's win
Thanks to Rohit Sharma's third ODI double ton, India beat Sri Lanka by 141 runs in the second ODI at the PCA stadium in Mohali and leveled the series 1-1.
Put into bat, India scored 392/4 in their 50 overs with Rohit Sharma remaining unbeaten on 208 off just 153 balls with 13 fours and 12 sixes. Shreyas Iyer gave him good support by scoring a 70-ball 88 while Shikhar Dhawan scored a counter-attacking 68 that set the tone for India.
Chasing 393, Sri Lanka were never in the chase as they finished their innings at 251/8 with Angelo Mathews waging a lone battle, scoring an unbeaten 111. Yuzvendra Chahal was the pick of the Indian bowlers with figures of 3/60 while Jasprit Bumrah accounted for two wickets.
Here is how the cricket world reacted to Rohit's record-breaking knock and India's win.
Shreyas Iyer: I was just being a spectator at the non-striker's end after getting to my 50. Just happy to give the strike to him. It was just the Rohit Sharma show thereafter. We batted well in the nets yesterday and it felt good. I took the confidence out there to the middle and it worked. Just backed my instincts, expressed myself. It's a good pitch to bat, just a bit tough early on and we hope to take 2-3 wickets early on. We had decided that we will take it to the 40th over and see from there because we had a good batting line-up. We knew that if one of us stayed till the end, it could be really good for the others to bat around us. There was a patch when I was just watching Rohit bat and I was stunned by that. I guess I got a bit lazy during that phase and maybe should have carried on further. But I guess it's part and parcel of the game.
Thisera Perera: Unfortunately our bowling did not click. Rohit specially batted really well and this is just a game of cricket which we have to take in our stride. We had a plan A, B and C but none of that clicked for us. If you want to chase a score as big as this, you need starts and scores in the middle order as well. But none of it clicked for us. Angelo did brilliantly well for us but it wasn't enough.
Rohit Sharma: It was a great day. Winning the game was important for me and for the team. After the loss at Dharamsala it was necessary to come back and and we did it superbly. It was great to get the total we got because there was a bit of dew in the end. If I am not wrong, in the first two 200s as well I got the century in the 38th over and I kept telling myself to hold my shape and hit through the line. I did pretty similar things in the earlier ones too - getting 50 off 70 balls. This wicket was superb to start off, the longer I stayed the easier it became to bat on. In the end, getting to 392 was important. I think that 264 is very close to me. People keep asking me to pick my favourite double-century but I really cannot pick one. That one against Australia was the series decider, the one against Sri Lanka earlier was one where I was coming back from an injury and this one was necessary to keep the series alive. (On his wife) I am sure she would have liked this gift from me. She is my strength and keeps supporting me. This is one good part about having your family around, we already go through a lot of stress and it makes our lives easier. The more important thing is that we won the game and right from the start we were right on top and gave nothing easy. We know what to do now in Vizag, the conditions will be different but we need to adapt and attack. (Washington's debut) Not the ideal conditions for him to debut but this is how he will learn. As a team management, we want to back players like him and I am sure he must have learnt a lot from this game, playing with the wet ball and I wish him all the luck.