Everyone knows Rohit Sharma as a Mumbai player; not only he was raised and came up through ranks in domestic cricket in the Mumbai team, the ‘Hitman’ also has been a big part of the Mumbai Indians franchise.
But, this week, Rohit Sharma got to bat in the city where he was actually born: Nagpur. Captaining in only his third Test, Rohit put up a spectacular show in his birth city against Australia to kick off the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series 2023 with a terrific century.
This hundred – his 9th in Tests – will be right up there as not only he had to battle a quality bowling attack on a challenging pitch, but also had to deal with the pressure of losing batting partners.
And the celebration of reaching a three-figure score, against the Aussies, in a pressure situation while bailing the team out, told it all.
He stepped down and chipped off-spinner Todd Murphy for an inside out shot on the off-side as the ball scampered to the boundary line. The crowd, already up on its feet, went berserk as Rohit Sharma beamed; the happiness on his face was palpable.
Here, watch Rohit Sharma’s celebration after reaching century:
This is Rohit’s first Test century against Australia in his 8th Test against this opposition. This hundred also put Rohit in the elite list of only 4 batters now who have recorded hundreds in all the three formats as captain, following Tillakaratne Dilshan, Faf du Plessis, and Babar Azam.
It was an innings of two different tempos from Sharma. In the third session of Day 1, after India had bowled Australia out for 177, he started off briskly. Rohit smashed three fours on the first three balls from Pat Cummins to kickstart India’s innings, and then raced to a 66-ball half-century before seeing KL Rahul get out.
Day 2 was tougher, with the pitch giving more help to the bowlers. Ashwin and Pujara got out in the first session, followed by the dismissals of Kohli and Suryakumar in the second session while Rohit battled it all out before reaching his hundred in 171 balls.
His innings of 120(212) came to end via a snorter from Pat Cummins, that took his off-stump.
