India’s stand-in T20I captain Rohit Sharma became the first Indian male cricketer and second man in world cricket to complete 100 T20 Internationals when he walked out for the toss in the second game against Bangladesh in Rajkot on Thursday.
It turned out to be a memorable evening for the stylish right-hand batsman as he smashed a 43-ball 85 to power India to a comfortable win and level the series 1-1.
India won the toss and opted to bat first in the second T20I, with the series on the line and the hosts trailing 0-1 after defeat in Delhi. Both teams did not make any changes to their respective playing eleven.
Harmanpreet Kaur had reached the milestone against South Africa during the home series recently, in the process becoming the first Indian cricketer to play 100 T20Is.
Pakistan’s Shoaib Malik (111 games) is the only other man to have played more than 100 T20 Internationals.
Before the action started in the second T20I, Rohit also started the night as the top-scorer in this format with 2452 runs with regular skipper Virat Kohli second in the list with an aggregate of 2450 runs. Rohit had scored the runs at a strike-rate of 136.67 with four hundreds and 17 half-centuries.
100th T20I match for Rohit Sharma. Second after Shoaib Malik (111 matches) to reach this landmark in T20I cricket.
— Mohandas Menon (@mohanstatsman) November 7, 2019
This is also Rohit Sharma's 320th T20 match. The most by an Indian player in this format. Previously Suresh Raina had appeared in 319 T20 games.#IndvBan #IndvsBan
“It’s been a long journey since 2007, I made my debut in the T20 World Cup. There has been a lot ups and down in the last 12 years in this format particularly. This has taught me so many lessons going forward,” Rohit had said in Delhi, when asked about the milestone.
“When you come into the team as a youngster, you are trying to learn things which happened quite smoothly at start. Then with few ups and few downs, I have become a stronger player and understood my game really well.
“There are so many things I can talk about. It has been a fruitful journey, one which will always be remembered and cherished by me,” Rohit said.
Bangladesh playing XI: Liton Das, Mohammad Naim, Soumya Sarkar, Mushfiqur Rahim(w), Mahmudullah(c), Afif Hossain, Mosaddek Hossain, Aminul Islam, Shafiul Islam, Mustafizur Rahman, Al-Amin Hossain
India playing XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (w), Shivam Dube, Krunal Pandya, Washington Sundar, Deepak Chahar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Khaleel Ahmed