That Rohit Sharma is one of the greatest all-format batters in the world is nothing new. The India opener, who made his international debut way back in 2007, took some time to find his feet in top-flight cricket. But once he did, Rohit did not look back. Since being promoted as an opener by MS Dhoni in 2013, Rohit’s career took a turn for the good as he rose to become one of the world’s best limited-overs batters. He is the only batter to score three ODI double-hundreds and notch up five centuries in the single edition of the world cup.
While 2013 proved to be a turning point in Rohit’s career, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar has highlighted another pivotal moment from his 15-year-long career that helped establish Sharma as a modern-day great. For years, Rohit, an indispensable part of the limited-overs set-up, struggled to cement his place in the Test arena, but all that changed in September in 2019, when Rohit started opening in Tests and his career took off.
However, despite piling runs at home, Rohit’s numbers overseas were a big concerns. Until August of 2021, Rohit did not have a single century outside India, but that trivia did not exist for long as against England, at the Oval, Rohit hit his maiden Test ton overseas, which for Gavaskar is a defining moment of Sharma’s career.
“It should be a defining moment in his cricket career because at the end of the day, however many runs you score at home, the number of centuries and the runs that you get overseas are the ones that decide your place in the pantheon of greats,” Gavaskar said on the docu-series ‘Architects of White’ streaming on SONY LIV.
Rohit has played 45 Tests of which 25 have been outside of India. Of his 3137 runs, 1760 have been in India and the remaining 1377 overseas. He may have only one century away from home, but has more fifties away (8) as compared to on home soil (6).