Rohit Sharma became the second-fastest India opener to score 2,000 runs in Test cricket. Sharma surpassed Sunil Gavaskar and Gautam Gambhir to achieve the feat. He took 40 innings to achieve the milestone whereas Gavaskar and Gambhir took 43. He is only behind Virender Sehwag who crossed the 2,000-run mark in Tests as an opener from 39 innings.
Rohit also became the first ever Indian batter to complete 2,000 runs in World Test Championship (WTC) history. The 36-year-old is overall the ninth batter to score 2,000 Test runs since WTC started. The list is topped by Joe Root followed by Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Ben Stokes, Babar Azam, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja and Dimuth Karunaratne.
Sharma is the 11th Indian opener to score 2,000 or more Test runs. The list is topped by Gavaskar (9,607 runs), Sehwag (8,124 runs), Gambhir (4,119 runs), Murali Vijay (3,880 runs), Navjot Singh Sidhu (2,911 runs), KL Rahul (2,551 runs), Shikhar Dhawan (2,315 runs), Pankaj Roy (2,220 runs), Chetan Chauhan (2,069 runs) and Kris Srikkanth (2,062 runs).
Rohit and his opening partner Yashasvi Jaiswal looked comfortable at Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain, Trinidad after West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite won the toss and opted to field first.
In the first session, Jaiswal and Rohit scored freely and scored 121 runs from 26 overs. This is the second consecutive century stand by an Indian opening pair in red-ball format. Only four other Indian opening pairs have done it in the past. However, the pair of Sehwag and Vijay is the only one to shared three consecutive century stands.
At the end of first session, Rohit was batting on 63 off 102 balls including six fours and two sixes. Jaiswal was more attacking as he scored 52 runs from 56 balls including eight fours and one six.
Earlier, at the coin toss, Rohit had expressed that he would have opted to bat first had he won the toss.
“There's lot of memories, the rivalry between the two teams has always been exciting to watch. It's always been a tough tour, you have to work hard. Even in the last game, we had to work hard, especially the batters. Hopefully we get the result we are expected of,” he said at the coin toss.
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