Star Indian opener Rohit Sharma has revealed that he never thought he would get to a double ton during the 2013 Bengaluru ODI against Australia.
It was Rohit’s first double hundred after he started opening the batting in the ICC Champions Trophy. Notably, the Mumbai Indians skipper is the only player to have scored three double hundreds in ODIs.
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“I never thought I would score a double hundred. I just wanted to bat well. It was a nice and flat pitch,” Rohit told senior India off-spinner R. Ashwin during an Instagram Live chat.
Rohit managed to score 209 off 158 deliveries, his innings studded with 12 boundaries and 16 sixes as India went on to win the match by 57 runs.
Rohit revealed during his interaction that it was former Indian batsman Yuvraj Singh who advised him to make the most of his opportunity as an opener and try and hit a big hundred.
“I remember Yuvi (Yuvraj Singh) telling me, this is a great opportunity for you. You have just started to open the batting. He told me this is a good opportunity for you to make a big score. I was getting 40s, 50s, 60s. That was a good talk we had before the game,” the 33-year old said.
“When I went back inside, someone was telling me, if you would have batted for another over or so you would have broken (Virender) Sehwag’s record,” said Rohit, who later went on to score 264 against Sri Lanka at Eden Gardens which remain the highest individual score.
“The expectation in the dressing room is really high. There were three or four guys who wanted me to score 10 or 15 more runs, Yuvi (Yuvraj Singh) was one of them and maybe Shikhar Dhawan too,” recalled Rohit.
