Rohit Sharma is a moniker Hitman for his incredible ability to tonk bowlers for enormous sixes. He is a familiar name in every Indian household and is no stranger to many Indians, not at least to the people of Maharashtra where the homeboy is admired and extolled by millions of Mumbaikars. Rohit happens to be a well-acclaimed Indian cricketer who is the current Indian cricket team captain of all three formats (ODI, Test and T20I). He also leads the most successful team in the IPL — Mumbai Indians — that has won five championships under the aegis of Rohit Sharma in the years.
Rohit’s credential as a leader is evident as he leads the pack as the only player to have the most number of T20I hundreds with 4 T20 centuries one apiece against South Africa, Sri Lanka, England and West Indies. The line of accolades doesn't stop there for him as Rohit happens to be the only cricketer with the most number of ODI double hundreds — three — and twice against Sri Lanka in 2014 and 2017.
Rohit is yet to be crowned with another feather in his cap as he is all poised to be the first player to have played the most number of T20 cricket world cups with the experience of 32 matches under his belt starting with the inception of the T20 World Cup which was a historic one for India winning the inaugural edition of the format.
Early Life
Rohit Gurunath Sharma was born on 30 March 1987 in Nagpur, Maharashtra. He hails from Bansod and grew up immersed in cricket from a tender age. Sharma’s most of the years growing up were spent with his grandparents and uncles in Borivali due to his father’s paltry pay who looked provided and looked after him as a young kid for his parents lived in a single room in Dombavali whom he would visit only during weekends. The weekend visits were due to his father finding himself snowed under at work as a caretaker for a transportation company. He has a lesser-known brother who is named Vishal Sharma.
Money was tight for the Sharma family and ends were hard to meet so joining a cricket academy which can cost an arm and a leg was a distant dream making it unaffordable that is when his generous aunt and uncle decided to chip in 50rs each backing Rohit financially to the hilt and encouraging him to live and work on his dreams in the city of dreams and then he joined a cricket camp for the first time in 1999. Dinesh Lad who was the coach of the camp advised Rohit that he switch his school to Swami Vivekanand School where the facilities for cricket were streets ahead of those he availed himself of at his old school. Sharma recalls “I told him I couldn't afford it, but he got me a scholarship. So for four years I didn't pay a penny, and did well in my cricket". Sharma didn't take to holding a bat right away, he instead started as an off-spinner who had the potential to bat but his abilities with the willow didn't escape the notice of Lad and heaved him from 8th position to the position of an opener. He left an immediate impact in Harris and Giles Shield school tournaments, leaving the imprints of his batting prowess by scoring a hundred on his debut.
Formative domestic years and youthful exuberance
Sharma was capped in List-A debut for West Zone against Central Zone in the Deodhar Trophy at Gwalior in March 2005 and Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravindra Jadeja also made debuts in the same match. Rohit caught everyone’s attention with a scintillating knock of 142 off 123 balls against North Zone in Udaipur making him the talk of the town. He flew to Australia and Abu Dhabi with the India-A squad and was named in the tentative 30-member list for the then forthcoming ICC Champions Trophy although he didn’t make the cut. Sharma rose through the ranks working his way up he played for the India u-19 team followed by India A debut against New Zealand in Darwin, Australia and then the Mumbai Ranji Team. In Ranji cricket, he hit a career-defining knock in the 2006-07 season and scored a stellar double hundred (205) off 267 balls. The final was won by Mumbai and Sharma starred with the bat in the second innings with a half-century of 57 runs against Bengal.
In the year 2009, his Ranji career reached a crescendo as he slogged out a triple hundred where he was 309 not out which to this day remains his best Ranji score.
INDIA DEBUT (ODI, T20, TEST)
- ODI
At the age of 20, he received a call-up from the senior side against Ireland where he was to bat at the number 7 position which he couldn’t due to India winning the game by 9 wickets. In the Pakistan tour of India in 2007, Rohit Sharma scored his maiden fifty off 52 runs off 61 balls though India lost the match. He was then part of India’s commonwealth bank series in Australia where he scored 235 runs with 2 fifties, the highest being that of 66 in a series decider final in Sydney and staged a famous run chase with Sachin Tendulkar which led India to a series victory. He struck his maiden century against Zimbabwe on May 28, 2010. Sharma’s career after that underwent an ordeal with a torrid time with the bat culminating in the loss of form, he had a woeful tour of South Africa prior to the 2011 World Cup. Consequently, he was dropped from the 2011 World Cup squad and superseded by Virat Kohli. The poor form reared again in 2012 after another abysmal show with the bat when he scored just 168 runs with an appalling average of 12.92 which included one half-century.
All was not lost for Rohit Sharma as MS Dhoni helped rekindle his career by trusting his abilities and having faith in him. Rohit didn’t disappoint and made the most of the prized opportunity. He was promoted as an opener along with Shikhar Dhawan in the 2013 edition of the Champions Trophy where the pair which was wet behind their ears, made it to the final against England and turned up triumphant as they did umpteen number of times for the years to come.
Tests
November 2013, Kolkata, Eden Gardens when the little master Sachin Tendulkar, was all set to retire and ring down the curtain on an everlasting career, it also rang up the test curtains for Rohit Sharma as he made his test debut. Sharma made a memorable debut for himself by hitting 177 which became the second highest for an Indian on a test debut.
Rohit was part of the Indian test squad intermittently until he looked to make a resolute and resounding comeback to the test side which had been eluding him for a good long while. In the home test series against South Africa in 2019, Rohit bore the responsibility as an opener in test cricket when India were scrambling for an opener to fill up the deficiency. Sharma notched up his 2000th test run coupled with his first double century. He hasn’t looked back since then and his meteoric rise to prominence after he plucked himself from obscurity speaks for itself.
T20Is
They don’t call him Ro-HITMAN for nothing. His match-winning knock came against South Africa at the 2007 T20 World Cup and made a name for himself. After Rickey Ponting’s retirement, Rohit in 2013 was at the helm of the captaincy of Mumbai Indians and has surpassed the legacy of the legend Indian WK MS Dhoni with the most number of IPL titles, 5 of which came under the captaincy of Rohit Sharma. Rohit’s eminence as a T20 player can be told when we learn an astounding fact about him being the only player in history to have played the most number of T20 World Cups.
