If I say Rohit Sharma’s career has improved since 2014, it must be an understatement.
This article in Cricinfo shows how Rohit had made himself an ODI monster since 2013 when he was asked to open the innings.
Long story short, THE decision was made by MS Dhoni, the Indian Captain, to promote Rohit Sharma from a middle-order batsman to an Opener. What happened next is history!
Rohit now has played over 100 Innings as an opener for India, and almost reached 5000 runs mark as an Opener itself. He has an average of 53 as an opener and 55 since 2013 in ODI. In doing so, he has almost destroyed every individual innings records in ODI.
Importantly, Rohit has this liking for scoring those big centuries – we can rightly call him “the king of daddy hundreds.”
It started with a mighty 209 against Australia in 2013 at Bengaluru and was followed by two more double centuries.
Currently, there are only 6 200+ scores in ODI history in which Rohit Sharma has 3 200+ scores. Phenomenal, Isn’t it?
Similarly, in the shortest format, Rohit Sharma has 4 tons already in T20s, which is the highest by any batsman in the format.
Of course, all these knocks have come while playing as an Opener.
Rohit Sharma – ODI Runs every year
Here is the distribution of Rohit Sharma ODI Runs year wise:
| YEARS | RUNS | INNINGS | AVERAGE | STRIKE RATE | 50s | 100s | HIGH SCORE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 61 | 3 | 20.33 | 82.43 | 1 | 0 | 52 |
| 2008 | 532 | 28 | 25.33 | 72.58 | 3 | 0 | 70* |
| 2009 | 102 | 7 | 25.50 | 65.81 | 0 | 0 | 43* |
| 2010 | 504 | 14 | 38.77 | 86.01 | 1 | 2 | 114 |
| 2011 | 611 | 16 | 55.55 | 82.68 | 6 | 0 | 95 |
| 2012 | 168 | 13 | 12.92 | 66.93 | 1 | 0 | 68 |
| 2013 | 1196 | 27 | 52.00 | 80.81 | 8 | 2 | 209 |
| 2014 | 578 | 12 | 52.55 | 94.29 | 3 | 1 | 264 |
| 2015 | 815 | 17 | 50.94 | 95.43 | 4 | 3 | 150 |
| 2016 | 564 | 10 | 62.67 | 95.27 | 2 | 2 | 171* |
| 2017 | 1293 | 21 | 71.83 | 99.46 | 5 | 6 | 208* |
| 2018 | 1030 | 19 | 73.57 | 100.10 | 3 | 5 | 162 |
| 2019 | 1490 | 27 | 57.30 | 89.92 | 6 | 7 | 159 |
| 2020 | 171 | 3 | 57.00 | 91.44 | 0 | 1 | 119 |
| 2021 | 90 | 3 | 30.00 | 86.53 | 0 | 0 | 37 |
| 2022 | 249 | 8 | 41.50 | 114.22 | 3 | 0 | 76* |
| 2023 | 1255 | 26 | 52.29 | 117.07 | 9 | 2 | 131 |
| 2024 | 157 | 3 | 52.33 | 141.44 | 2 | 0 | 64 |
| TOTAL | 10866 | 257 | 49.16 | 92.43 | 57 | 31 | 264 |
You can see the sharp increase in his Average and Strike rate clearly after 2013.
At his peak in 2017, Rohit Sharma came only next to Virat Kohli in Most Runs in ODI that year.
During this period, Rohit Sharma also became the fastest Indian player to score 2000 Runs in home ODI matches.
Especially in the last 7 years (2013-2019), his average has not gone down 50 in a single year. It’s almost reaching 60 now.
And the best part in his career came when he became the overall run-scorer in the World Cup 2019 with 648 runs and 5 Centuries, becoming the first batsman to score 5 centuries in a single world cup tournament.
As an opener, Rohit now has 27 centuries to his name in ODIs. Check here, how many centuries he will need to replace Sachin Tendulkar, who has got the most hundreds playing as an opener.
Also, on the path of being a successful opener for India, Rohit Sharma scored the
- Highest ODI Score Overall in 2013 – 209
- Highest ODI Score Overall in 2014 – 264
- Highest ODI Score for India in 2015 – 150
- Highest ODI Score for India in 2016 – 171*
- Highest ODI Score Overall in 2017 – 208*
- Highest ODI Score for India in 2018 – 162
- Highest ODI Score for India in 2019 – 159
You should also read the list of insane records hold by Rohit Sharma in all formats.
Also, Rohit has never missed scoring a 150+ in an ODI match, every year since 2013.
Although he is yet to score one in 2019, he leads the chart of Players with most 150 scores in ODI history!
Rohit – Virat impact in Indian Cricket since 2013
In the meantime, India has seen another legend in the making.
Virat Kohli, the run machine in the Indian team, has almost ruled the Cricket batting records during this same period.
He is now the fastest to 10000 runs in ODI and only a few ODI 100s behind the master Sachin Tendulkar himself.
If you see Virat’s performance every year since 2013, you can see why he is rated as the best batsman of this generation.
Comparing Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli is tricky as both these batsmen are technically different species.
Here’s what I mean…
As you see, Rohit is a naturally made player, whereas Virat turns out to be the hardest working run machine.
You should understand the secret behind Rohit’s Pull Shot and Virat’s Cover Drive to understand their natural and technical abilities.
For the stats lovers, I have made this blog to compare how these two master batsmen come against each other in the current year in all formats.
And, most importantly, it only gets better when these two bats together.
Rohit Sharma-Virat Kohli partnerships in ODI are already a big success. The duo already has 17 100+ partnerships in ODI, in which they rank 3rd in the world.
What to expect from Rohit Sharma in the coming years?
There are few records on the radar of Rohit Sharma that he could break into in the coming years.
- Rohit has the better chance that any batsman to break the record of six-hitting in the ODI format.
- Rohit Sharma also has a high possibility of reaching 10000 Runs in ODI, as he is the next in the line-up among the current batsmen to reach the milestone mark.
- Rohit always has this liking to play against Australia. He already holds multiple average records against Australia in ODIs, and might also break the record of Most runs against Australia in ODI in the coming years.
- Finally, as I mentioned before, Rohit in T20 is always going to be exciting to watch. He is already among the top runs and century scorer in the format. And, as we know, there are much more to be conquered in T20.
The Bottom-line!
Rohit Sharma has been a real monster when it comes to the white-ball cricket, since 2013.
He has risen from a player of lower confidence to the Vice-Captain of the team in the last five years. And on top of that,
Now he is back into the Test team as well!
With him at the age of 31, he is expected to beat a few more records in International cricket on the days to come, and we will be right here to cover everything for you!
You can now read the year-wise stats of Rohit Sharma in Test and T20I cricket to understand how good he has been in all three formats.
