Mumbai: Former India captain Krishnamachari Srikkanth has heaped rich praise on Rohit Sharma, saying the stylish batsman is one of the greatest ever ODI openers, considering his ability to convert centuries into daddy hundreds.
As an opener, Rohit has scored 7148 runs from 140 ODIs at an average of 58.11 with 27 centuries and out of his 29 ODI centuries, 11 times he has scored in excess of 140, including three double hundreds.
Srikkanth, who himself was an opener and played 43 Tests and 146 ODIs between 1981 and 1992, feels Rohit will be in the top-3 or top-5 in the list of all time greatest openers, who have graced the game.
“I would rate him as one of the greatest all-time one-day openers in world cricket. What’s the greatest quality in Rohit Sharma is that he goes for these big hundreds and double hundreds, that is something amazing,” Srikkanth said on Star Sports show ‘Cricket Connected’.
“In a one-day match, you will go 150, 180, 200, just imagine where you are going to take the team to, that’s the greatness about Rohit,” he added.
Rohit has so far played in 224 ODIs, scoring 9115 runs at an average of 49.27 with 29 hundreds and 43 fifties. His highest score is 264, which is a world record.
Earlier this year, Rohit also became the fastest to score 7000 ODI runs as opener, leaving behind Sachin Tendulkar and South Africa’s Hashim Amla.
Last year, he was the world’s leading ODI run-getter with 1490 runs. Named the ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year for 2019, Rohit became the first player in history to score five ODI centuries in a single edition of the World Cup.
(AGENCIES)
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