Former India National Cricket Team captain Rohit Sharma has created history with his performance with the bat in the third ODI of the three-match series against the South Africa National Cricket Team.
KL Rahul-led India and Temba Bavuma-led South Africa are locking horns with each other in the ODI series decider at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam.
Rohit Sharma Enters 20,000-Run Club
The 38-year-old has looked in sensational form since making his comeback to One Day Internationals, and he even won the Player of the Series award in the Australia ODIs for his stellar performances.
He started off the ODI series against South Africa on a strong note as he slammed 57 runs in the opening match. However, he fell for 14 runs in the second game of the series.
Heading into the third ODI, Rohit was only a few runs away from the 20,000-run mark, and he easily achieved the legendary milestone in the 14th over, which was bowled by Keshav Maharaj.
On the fourth ball of the 14th over, Keshav Maharaj bowled a 87.9 kmph on a length, and Rohit punched it towards long-off for a single. With that single, he completed 20,000 runs in international cricket.
The legendary opener became only the fourth Indian and 14th man overall to score 20,000 runs in international cricket.
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India’s top 10 run-getters in international cricket:
| Player | Matches | Innings | Runs | Average | Strike Rate | Hundreds | Fifties |
| SR Tendulkar | 664 | 782 | 34357 | 48.52 | 67.58 | 100 | 164 |
| V Kohli | 556 | 622 | 27910 | 52.46 | 79.37 | 84 | 144 |
| R Dravid | 504 | 599 | 24064 | 45.57 | 51.93 | 48 | 145 |
| RG Sharma | 505 | 538 | 20018 | 42.5 | 87.34 | 50 | 110 |
| SC Ganguly | 421 | 485 | 18433 | 41.42 | 62.9 | 38 | 106 |
| MS Dhoni | 535 | 523 | 17092 | 44.74 | 78.78 | 15 | 108 |
| V Sehwag | 363 | 431 | 16892 | 40.6 | 92.44 | 38 | 70 |
| M Azharuddin | 433 | 455 | 15593 | 39.77 | 66.92 | 29 | 79 |
| SM Gavaskar | 233 | 316 | 13214 | 46.2 | 48.25 | 35 | 72 |
| Yuvraj Singh | 399 | 588 | 11686 | 34.98 | 83.55 | 17 | 71 |
Overall, if you look at the three games, I think we have done well as a bowling unit – Prasidh Krishna
Speaking after the match, the star pacer Prasidh Krishna said that the conditions were bowling-friendly in the third match and added that he was satisfied with the performance of the bowling unit in the series. He elaborated:
“(Conditions more bowling-friendly today?) I would say so, yes, but then I wouldn’t really blame it on the dew or the pitch being any harder in the last couple of games as professionals, I think we are expected to face tough challenges and as bowlers, we would always want to overcome them.
“A lot of credit goes to Arsh and Harshit the way they started. Harshit also, when he came back in that spell, he made sure he kept it really quiet, didn’t really try a lot of things and that was the pressure in itself and then for Kuldeep to come on and pick those wickets.
“Overall, if you look at the three games, I think we have done well as a bowling unit. I was under a bit of pressure definitely after the last game. The talk was just about what went wrong, what can we do better and it was pretty clear because I know what I can do, I know the areas that I can bowl. It’s just about turning up on that day and making sure you keep them simple, be calm and give yourself the best chance to execute them.”
