Indian batting legend Sunil Gavaskar lauded the Khel Ratna award winner Rohit Sharma and mentioned that he would have loved to bat like the Indian white-ball vice-captain in limited-overs cricket.
Rohit Sharma, who made his India debut in 2007, saw a turnaround in fate, when MS Dhoni asked him to move up as an opener in 2013. That led to him becoming one of the most destructive batsmen in limited-overs cricket, who has a record 3 double tons in ODIs and four centuries in T20I cricket.
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"The way you see a Rohit Sharma opening the batting in one-day cricket, Test cricket smashing from the first over. That is what I wanted to play. Circumstances and of course lack of confidence in my ability did not allow me to do that. But when I see the next generation doing it, I am absolutely over the moon, I love watching the next generation because there you see progress. You see how they are setting the bar higher for the next generation," Sunil Gavaskar told India Today's Boria Majumdar on the latest episode of Inspiration.
As an opener, Rohit has scored 7148 runs from 140 ODIs at an average of 58.11 with 27 centuries, whereas in T20Is, he’s tallied 2313 runs from 76 innings and slammed four centuries, the most by a player in the format.
He recently slammed five centuries in the 2019 World Cup and was named the ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year for 2019 for making 1490 runs in the format.
Overall, Rohit has 9115 ODI runs with 29 centuries in 224 matches, while in T20Is, he has 2773 runs in 108 matches with 4 centuries, including the joint-fastest ton in 35 balls.
