Happy Birthday Rohit Sharma: Three lesser-known records held by 'The Hitman' Rohit Sharma

By Benson | Updated: April 30, 2020 17:29 IST2020-04-30T17:29:15+5:302020-04-30T17:29:15+5:30

Today is the 33rd birthday of Rohit Sharma, who has made a name for himself as a 'hitman' in international cricket. He was born in Bansod, Nagpur. His father was a carpenter. His uncle brought him to Mumbai and from there his cricket journey began.

He went to a cricket camp in 1999 with money given by his uncle. He had scored a century as an opener in his debut in the Harris Shield and Giles Shield inter-school cricket tournament. Now he is one of the best batsmen in the world.

In the first six years of his career, Rohit faced many ups and downs, but former skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni gave him a chance to play in the opener and his fortunes changed. He is a permanent member of India's ODI and Twenty20 teams.

His place in the Test team has been shaky, but he also secured a place in the Tests at home last year. Rohit is the only batsman in the world to score more than one double century in ODI cricket. But, he has three records that are very hard for any cricketer to emulae.

Manish Pandey or Suresh Raina are not the first Indians to score a century in Twenty20 cricket, but the record is in Rohit's name. Twenty20 cricket was not much talked about then, so no one noticed Rohit's record.

While representing Mumbai, Rohit set the record against Gujarat in the Twenty20. He had scored a century off 45 balls against Gujarat in local Twenty20 cricket in 2006-07. It included 13 fours and 5 sixes.

Rohit got a chance to play in Sachin Tendulkar's retirement Test series. He scored two centuries in a row in that two-match series against the West Indies. After his debut, Rohit set a record of scoring a century in two consecutive Tests.

With this record, Rohit joined the ranks of Sourav Ganguly, James Nisham, Bill Ponsford, Dodge Watlers, Alvin Kalicharan, Greg Blevet and Abid Ali.

Rohit became the third batsman to score a double century in ODI cricket in 2013. But Rohit did what Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag could not do. He completed a double century by hitting sixes and this record is still in his name.

Among the batsmen who have scored double centuries in ODIs are Chris Gayle, Martin Guptill and Fakhar Zaman. Rohit then scored his second and third double centuries in 2014 and 2017.

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