Bangalore: India opener Rohit Sharma reached another milestone in his career as he became the third-fastest to 9,000 ODI runs during the third ODI which ended here Sunday with India winning the game by seven wickets.
Rohit, who was dismissed cheaply in the series opener in Mumbai and then made 42 in the second match at Rajkot, needed just four runs before this game to surpass former India skipper and current BCCI president, Sourav Ganguly and become the second fastest Indian to reach the milestone.
The 32-year-old, who was awarded the ODI cricketer of 2019 by the ICC, achieved the feat in the achieved the feat in the first over of India’s run chase at the M Chinnaswamy stadium.
Rohit took just 217 innings to amass 9000 ODI runs while Ganguly had taken 228 innings. He also was quicker than two legends of the game, Sachin Tendulkar (235 innings) and Brian Lara (239 innings) to reach the 9,000-run mark. Incidentally Rohit is the seventh Indian batsman after Mohammad Azharuddin, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli to book his name in the 9,000 ODI runs club.
Notably, Rohit had completed his first 2,000 runs in the format in 82 innings, which was the third slowest by a batsman. But the ‘Hitman’s fortunes turned after he was promoted to the opening slot in the shorter versions of the game in 2013. Currently Rohit is considered one of the best batsmen in white ball cricket.
The record for the fastest to 9,000 ODI runs belongs to India skipper Virat Kohli, who achieved the feat in just 194 innings. The second batsman in the elite list is former South Africa cricketer AB de Villiers (205 innings).
PNN & Agencies