Talent, in sport, is a double-edged sword. Whenever an athlete wields his game with flair and fearlessness, his/her name is bound to associate with the word – 'talent'.
As far as cricket is concerned – there is no bigger victim of this term than India batsman Rohit Sharma. Ever since Rohit made his international debut in 2007, he has been labeled as the most naturally gifted Indian batsman since Sachin Tendulkar.
While Sharma often receives a lot of praise for his natural talent, the same terminology also becomes a curse for him every now and then. When Rohit doesn’t manage to live up to the expectations, he gets brutally trolled on social media with folks making meme on his talent.
However, Rohit Sharma believes he isn’t gifted and whatever he has achieved in cricket thus far is simply because of his hard work.
On Saturday (September 1), Sharma was conducting a question-answer session on Twitter wherein he was asked why he hates the word ‘talent’. To which he replied: “Because I’m not talented, I worked for everything I have”.
Because I’m not talented, I worked for everything I have
— Rohit Sharma (@ImRo45) September 1, 2018
Whether it is talent, handwork or the combination of both, one thing is sure that Rohit has come a long way in international cricket. The Mumbaikar boasts of quite a few world records to his name. He is the proud owner of the highest individual ODI score — 264 (against Sri Lanka in 2014). Moreover, he is the only batsman in the history of ODI cricket to score three ODI double tons.
During his 11-year long cricket career thus far, Sharma has amassed 6748 ODI runs in 183 matches at an average and strike-rate of 44.99 and 87.18 respectively.
He also has 18 ODI tons and 3 Test tons to his name and is only one of the two batsmen to have scored three Twenty20 international centuries. Rohit has also played a key role in India’s 2007 ICC World T20I triumph and 2013 ICC Champions Trophy title wins.
