Kolkata: Rohit Sharma's 85 in India's win in the second T20I against Bangladesh was another addition to his many match-winning knocks in a glittering .
Rohit has had a glorious run in 2019 so far. He started with an ODI century against Australia in Sydney in January and followed it up with five more during the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2019. He carried that form to the five-day format too, scoring 529 runs from four innings in home Tests against South Africa.
With that kind of form, a big knock in T20Is wasn't far away. After all, it is a format in which he first captured the attention of many, during India's victorious campaign in the inaugural edition of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup in 2007.
On Thursday, India's stand-in captain hit 85 off just 43 balls, including six hits to the fence and as many over it, to help his side draw level in the three-match series.
The second T20I against Bangladesh in Rajkot marked the 100th T20I appearance for Rohit, making him only the second man to reach the mark after Pakistan's Shoaib Malik. He remains one of the only three Indian players to have featured in each edition of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup.
There has been stiff competition in the run-making charts between India skipper Virat Kohli and his deputy Rohit for quite some time now. For now, Rohit is leading the way with 2537 runs from 92 innings. His best run came in 2018, when he made 590 runs from 18 innings at an average of 36.88, including two unbeaten hundreds against England and West indies.
Rohit is the only player to have hit four T20I hundreds; Australia's Glenn Maxwell and New Zealand's Colin Munro having hit three each. The second of those came off a mere 35 balls, against Sri Lanka in Indore in December 2017 and saw him become the joint-fastest to the mark alongside South Africa's David Miller and Czech Republic's Sudesh Wickramasekara. Sharma's 43-ball 118 included 12 fours and 10 sixes, and powered India to their highest T20I total of 260/5, an ICC report said.
Rohit has 18 fifties, second after Kohli's 22. Along with his four hundreds, it makes him the joint record-holder for most 50-plus scores in the format. The most significant one perhaps came in his very first outing in the format: he scored an unbeaten fifty in a must win game against South Africa in Durban during the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2007.
Rohit has hit 115 sixes in T20Is, the most by any player in the format. A striking feature about his six-hitting is that he relies more on the timing and maintaining his shape, rather than just aiming to muscle the ball. He has hit 225 fours too, the second most behind Virat Kohli's 235; thus, he leads the overall boundary count with 340.
Rohit first opened in international cricket during the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2009. Since then, he and Shikhar Dhawan have 1740 runs from 51 innings at an average of 34.11 in T20Is: the highest tally for any pair in the format. They've notched up four century stands while at it, with the highest of 160 coming against Ireland in Dublin in 2018.(UNI)
