Former India opener Gautam Gambhir has said that Rohit Sharma has an edge over Virat Kohli in limited-overs cricket despite the Indian captain’s dominating numbers across formats of the game.
“… for me white-ball cricket is all about impact. Kohli will end up getting many more runs than Rohit, and Kohli is among the greatest right now, but Rohit has an edge over Kohli because of the impact he has,” Gambhir told Sports Tak as quoted by PTI.
“I think he (Rohit) is the best white-ball cricketer in the world right now. He is not the greatest overall but at the moment he is the best. He is the only player to have hit 3 ODI double hundreds, 5 World Cup hundreds (in one edition) and he is also the only player, who once gets past 100-run mark, people say that he missed a double century.”
Speaking further about Rohit and Kohli, the 2011 World Cup-winner admitted that the Indian skipper’s statistics are far superior to his vice-captain. But he said that Rohit has created an aura of himself and thus whenever he gets out people tend to think that he missed out on a double century.
Gambhir, meanwhile, gave the credit of Rohit’s success in international cricket to former captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
“Where Rohit is today, it is because of MS Dhoni. One good thing about MS was that he always kept Rohit in the talks, even if was not part of the team, he was always part of the group. He never let him get sidelined,” the cricketer-turned-politician said.
The 33-year-old Rohit has scored 9115 runs from 224 ODIs at an average of 49.27 at a strike rate of 88.92. He has 29 hundreds and 43 fifties to his name. In T20Is, Rohit has scored 2273 runs from 108 matches at an average of 32.62 and a strike rate of 138.78.
The 31-year-old Kohli, on the other hand, has scored 11867 runs from 248 ODIs at an average of 59.33 at a strike rate of 93.25. He has scored 43 centuries and 58 half-centuries. Kohli has also scored 2794 runs from 82 T20Is at an average of 50.80 and a strike rate of 138.24.
With PTI inputs