India’s new limited-overs skipper Rohit Sharma has had a terrific start to his full-time captaincy stint. In fact, India has lost a single game so under the new era of Rohit Sharma’s leadership in white-ball cricket.
In November last year, India defeated T20 World Cup runners-up, New Zealand, by a 3-0 scoreline at home. By the same margin were the West Indies white-washed in the ODI series. Then, on Wednesday, the Men In Blue took a 1-0 lead in the T20I series against Kieron Pollard’s side in Kolkata, defeating the visitors by 6 wickets.
Rohit Sharma was at the forefront of the chase of 158. He was in a sensational hitting mood against a decent, if not threatening, West Indies bowling attack, smashing 40 runs off 19 balls, with the help of 4 dashing boundaries and 3 towering sixes.
This assault in the powerplay overs, though, has become Rohit Sharma’s modus operandi in recent years. Amid his frenzied start on Wednesday, a stat has come to light that has got the fans buzzing about Sharma’s intent upfront with the bat.
Since the start of 2018, in the powerplay in T20I, Rohit scores a boundary at a rate of fewer than 5 balls!! While batting the first six overs in his last 47 innings, according to cricmetric.com, Rohit Sharma has stroked 100 fours and 469 sixes in a total of 628 he has faced. His average in these games is 39 and his strike rate is 142.
Further, he continues with this rate in the middle-overs, not letting the innings slow down, and then, if he is there till the death overs, implodes with a strike rate of over 230.
Sharma’s approach is different to, say, former skipper Virat Kohli: since the start of 2018, Kohli has had a lowly strike rate of 110 in the powerplay in T20Is, and that increases to 129 in the middle-overs. In the death overs, he accelerates to 202 – but is not quite dangerous as Rohit Sharma has been during this period.
