Star India opener and now white-ball captain, Rohit Sharma, has opened up on the frequent comparisons made between him and other players – especially teammate Virat Kohli – by pundits and fans.
Over the past few years, fans and cricket experts have always been drawing parallels and chalking out differences between Rohit and Kohli regarding their style of play, attitude, statistics as batsmen and as captain in national colours and in the IPL.
Speaking in an interview for Sky Sports with commentator Dinesh Karthik last year, Sharma, in simple terms, said that he hates when people make comparisons because two players are completely different and it isn’t fair on either of them that they are being compared. He asserted that broadcasters show the statistics only to keep the fans engaged and sportspersons don’t really like that.
“I hate it [comparisons]. Everyone is different; you can’t compare. Comparison is a thief of joy. It’s just sit there and two people trying to compare so that it’s fun for the spectators to watch it. ‘This is what he does, this is what he doesn’t do.’ It’s good for the audience. If you ask any sportsmen, they’ll not be happy about it. Because everyone has their own strength and weakness, everyone’s different. So how can you compare? It’s only for television,” Rohit Sharma had said.
Sharma is now the India captain in ODI and T20I and will lead for the first time as a full-time skipper in the upcoming home series against West Indies.
The first ODI versus West Indies, to be played on 6th February at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad, will be a special occasion as it will be the 1000th ODI for the Indian team.
India played their first ODI match in 1974 against England at Headingley under Ajit Wadekar’s leadership. Kapil Dev was the captain in India’s 100th ODI. Sourav Ganguly led India in the 500th ODI while MS Dhoni captained the team in the 700th, 800th and 900th ODI match.
Having played 999 ODIs so far, India will become the first team to play 1000 ODIs in the history of cricket. Second are Australia with 958 ODI matches, followed by Pakistan who have the third-most number of ODIs, 936.
However, it is Australia who have won the most number of ODIs – 581. India have emerged victorious in 518 ODIs while Pakistan have won 490 ODI games.
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