Rohit Sharma in action against South Africa in Southampton on Wednesday (Reuters Photo)Rohit Sharma scored his second hundred in a World Cup and 23rd overall when he reached the three-figure mark against South Africa at The Rose Bowl in Southampton on Wednesday. India eventually won the match by 6 wickets with fifteen balls to spare, with Rohit scoring an unbeaten 122 off 144 balls. Rohit began cautiously as the Proteas pacers made life difficult on a track which assisted the seamers, but looked ominous once he got his eye in.
Here are some of the batting records he racked up on way to his matchwinning century:
# Rohit (23 ODI centuries) is now the third in the list of India’s ODI centurions. Only Sachin Tendulkar (49 ODI centuries) and Virat Kohli (41 ODI centuries) are ahead of him in this list. Sourav Ganguly, who is now fourth on this list, has 22 ODI centuries.
# Rohit took 128 balls to bring up his 100 today. This was the slowest of his 23 centuries.
# Rohit’s century was the 26th by an Indian in World Cups and the 168th overall. India and Australia now account for 26 World Cup centuries each, the most by any nation.
# Rohit became the 9th Indian to cross 12,000 international runs. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virat Kohli, Sourav Ganguly, MS Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Mohammad Azharuddin and Sunil Gavaskar are the only others in this elite list.
# Rohit Sharma’s 122* is the 2nd highest individual score by an Indian in a World Cup chase. The highest is Sachin Tendulkar’s 127* against Kenya in 1996.
# The win against South Africa was Virat Kohli’s 50th ODI win as captain. He has taken 69 ODIs to reach this mark, which is the quickest among Asian captains. Only Clive Lloyd (63 ODIs), Ricky Ponting (63 ODIs) and Hansie Cronje (68 ODIs) have got to this landmark in fewer matches.
