Indian captain, Rohit Sharma is regarded as one of the best batsmen in limited overs cricket, however, he scored just a couple of hundreds in the first six years of his ODI career. A turning point in his career came when the then captain MS Dhoni promoted him as an opening batsman in 2013. As a result, he is just one century away from equaling former Australian captain Ricky Ponting in the list of batsmen with most hundreds. History of 50 over cricket.
Rohit Sharma currently has 29 hundreds and 9537 runs in 237 matches at an average of close to 49. On the other hand, Ponting ended his career with 30 centuries and 13704 runs in 375 matches at an average of 42. Indian captain higher than Australian legend
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Ahead of the ongoing second ODI between India and Sri Lanka in Kolkata, Gautam Gambhir said, “The surprising fact is that he has scored so many hundreds in the last four or five years. Rohit Sharma was not in this consistency before last five-six years. In the last five-six-seven years, they have definitely got around 20 hundred.
Gautam Gambhir is right about Rohit’s century graph as Rohit has scored 19 ODI hundreds in just five years between 2017 and 2020. In fact, his last century came against Australia back in January 2020. He is one century behind Ponting for almost three years.
Gambhir’s comparison between Rohit and Ponting was so sudden that fellow panellist and former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar was completely taken aback. “You missed it,” Manjrekar said to get the host’s attention. “No, he is a better player than Ricky Ponting. Because Ricky has a sh** record in the subcontinent,” Gambhir said.
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If we look at the statistics, Ricky Ponting averages 41 in ODIs played in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. But there is a huge difference in their centuries column. In the subcontinent, Ponting has scored only six centuries out of his 30. Rohit, on the other hand, has a similar stretch of centuries. Outside the subcontinent, he has 13 ODI hundreds and an average of 47, just one less than his overall career average.
