ODI on Thursday at Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla will be a little bit special for one player - Rohit Sharma, for whom it will be his 150th game. The India opener has played 149 ODIs so far, with a total of 5022 runs at 41.85 with 10 hundreds. Two of which, famously, are double-hundreds.
On the occasion of Rohit’s 150th ODI, here are five of his best innings.
141* off 123 balls v Australia, Jaipur, 2013
India bounced back from defeat to Australia in the first of seven ODIs with a remarkable nine-wicket win at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, chasing 360 with 39 deliveries remaining. On a flat track, Rohit and Shikhar Dhawan (95) rattled away an opening stand of 176 in 26.1 overs, before Virat Kohli joined the fun and hammered 100* off 52 balls. Yet the Man of the Match was Rohit, who remained unbeaten on 141 having hit 17 fours and four sixes in what was India’s highest successful chase. It was his first ODI hundred in three-and-a-half-years.
209 off 158 balls v Australia, Bangalore, 2013
Rohit's knock was unbelievable. He started off in sedate fashion to notch up his first fifty of 72 balls but teed off after that and demolished the Australian bowling. After reaching his hundred off 114 balls, Rohit's next 109 runs needed just 44 balls. He hit a world record 16 sixes as he became the third Indian to score a double-century in ODIs after Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag. This knock helped India reach 383 and win them the seven-match ODI series 3-2.
264 off 173 balls v Sri Lanka, Kolkata, 2014
Rohit, returning from finger and shoulder injuries that kept him out of international cricket for almost two-and-a half months, smashed the highest individual score in ODI history at Eden Gardens. He took 72 balls to reach his fifty but after that hit top gear and his next four fifties came off 28, 25, 26 and 15 balls. In all, he hit 33 fours and nine sixes. Not only did he become the first batsman to score two ODI double-hundreds, Rohit also broke Sehwag's record of highest individual score (219) as India posted a mammoth 404 in pursuit of which Sri Lanka could only manage 251 all out.
137 off 126 balls v Bangladesh, Melbourne, 2015
Rohit enjoys batting at the iconic MCG, as evident by two ODI hundreds in the span of two months - first, he made 138 against Australia during the CB Series in January 2015 and then, during the World Cup quarter-final in March, a match-winning 137. India’s 109-run victory against Bangladesh was built on Rohit’s seventh ODI century, a 126-ball hundred that consisted of three sixes and 14 fours. He thus became the third visiting batsman to score two ODI tons at the MCG, along with David Gower and Sir Vivian Richards as India went through to the semi-final.
99 off 108 balls v Australia, Sydney, 2016
A hundred missed by one run. India had been beaten in four ODIs in a row but in the dead rubber they salvaged some pride with tense win with two balls remaining, finished with Manish Pandey’s maiden hundred. But before the young Karnataka batsman took the plaudits, Rohit had helped put a chase of 331 in place with his 99. While Dhawan (78 off 56 balls) blazed away during an opening stand of 123, Rohit kept the pace up and was assured. After Kohli failed, he and Pandey put on 97 for the third wicket.