Rohit Sharma is one of the prolific run-scorer for India in the limited-overs cricket. The Indian vice-captain, in one of the latest Instagram Live sessions with his Indian teammate Ravichandran Ashwin, walked back in time to discuss his maiden ODI double ton against Australia in 2013 at Bengaluru.
Rohit, who’s popularly known as Hitman, played a brilliant inning of 209 runs off just 158 deliveries including 12 fours and 16 sixes in helping India clinch the series decider. Rohit, who opened the innings along with Shikhar Dhawan, stitched a 100-run stand before a flurry of wickets in the middle steadied the run-rate. While batting with Dhoni, who came in to bat at N0.6, Sharma decided to take on the bowlers despite his then captain asking him to hold back.
Rohit disagreed with Dhoni’s cautious approach
Rohit reminisced an incident that occurred with MS Dhoni while they were batting together in series decider against Australia in 2013. “You know how it is with MS in the middle,” said Rohit. “He likes to talk, he likes to keep adding his thoughts about what I should do. Dhoni, who was new to the crease wanted the opener to bat till the end and take the cautious approach. However, Sharma was reluctant to agree to his captain and wanted to go for the kill in the last few overs.
“He was telling me ‘you’re the set batsman and I want you to bat till the 48th, 49th of 50th over, because you can hit any bowler anywhere you want. So let me take chances, you just take a backseat, take singles, knock the ball in the gaps, and find the odd boundary if you can, ” Hitman added.
And I just thought ‘no yaar, I’m seeing the ball really well and I might as well put pressure on the bowlers right here, right now’. Then I decided to just go after the bowlers. And I remember hitting Xavier Doherty for four sixes in an over, said Rohit in his interaction Ashwin on Instagram.
In the end, India ended up putting a mammoth total of 383/6 in their 50 overs. It was courtesy of a huge 167-run partnership between Rohit and Dhoni (62 off 38) that propelled India to such a huge score. While India won the game by 57 runs to clinch the series 3-2, it was a historic occasion as Rohit Sharma became only the third Indian to register a double hundred in an ODI fixture.
