India completed a 3-0 clean sweep over Sri Lanka with a thumping 90-run victory in the third and final ODI at Indore on Tuesday (January 24).
After the game, India skipper Rohit Sharma aimed a dig at BCCI's official broadcaster for showing his 85-ball 101 in the third ODI against New Zealand as his first century in the 50-over format in three years.
“Regarding the first hundred in three years, I’ve played only 12 ODIs in three years, so three years sounds a lot,” Rohit said while replying to a question about the three-year gap between his 29th and 30th ODI century.
“You guys should know what’s happening. I know that it was shown on the broadcast, sometimes, you need to show the right things also. The last entire year, we didn’t play ODI cricket, we focused on T20 cricket a lot. So, sometimes, people should keep things in mind…the broadcasters should show the right things,” he added.
When another reporter asked him about the talks that the ‘Hitman’ has made a ‘comeback’ with a century, Rohit replied: “What sort of a comeback? I didn’t get it. Oh, someone must’ve told you! See, of those last three years, for eight months (in 2020), everyone was home. Where were the matches? Last year, we played only T20 cricket. In T20 cricket these days, no one is batting better than Suryakumar Yadav. He has scored 2 hundreds (in T20Is), and I don’t think anyone else has scored a century. Regarding Tests, I’ve played just 2 matches, against Sri Lanka (last year), while I was injured in between. So, you see all this before making your news."
Coming to the third ODI, India rode on Rohit’s century and Shubman Gill’s 112 off 78 balls to pile up a gigantic 385/9 in their allotted 50 overs.
Defending the total, Indian bowlers proved to be too good for the Kiwi batting line-up, bundling them out for 295 in 41.2 overs. While Shardul Thakur (3-45) and Kuldeep Yadav (3-62) claimed three wickets each, the likes of Yuzvendra Chahal (2-43), Hardik Pandya (1-37) and Umran Malik (1-52) shared the remaining four scalps among them.
(With TOI Inputs)
