Rohit Sharma's record-breaking stint in the first Test of the three-match series against South Africa continued on Day 4. After the Mumbai batsman went into record books for most individual sixes in a Test match in India, Rohit has now become the most successful debutant as an opener in the history of the game.
During the second innings of the game, Rohit Sharma went past South Africa's Kepler Wessels (who played for Australia at the time) to score the highest number of runs in maiden Test match as an opener. Wessels had scored 208 across the two innings against England in 1982.
Rohit scored a brilliant 176 in the first innings of the Test match, as he partnered Mayank Agarwal for a 317-run stand for the first wicket. With such a solid performance in his first game as an opener, Rohit has seemingly sealed the spot and put an end to the opening woes in Test matches for now.
Rohit was experimented for the opening role after Hanuma Vihari's impressive performances at number 6 in the tour to West Indies closed the doors for a comeback in the middle-order. The Mumbai batsman, however, insisted that he finds the batting more comfortable as an opener after the Day 1 of the game.
The 32-year-old is a regular opener for the side in the limited-overs.
WHAT-A-STAT!
Rohit Sharma has registered scores of 82, 51*, 102*, 65, 50*, 176 & 127 in his last seven home innings. This takes his average in the seven innings to a mammoth 199.33. Remember, Rohit is not dismissed yet, so expect the average to increase!
And that is not all. As the numbers signify, Rohit has reached to 50+ scores in all of his last seven innings, which is a record in India. The Mumbai batsman has gone past Everton Weekes, Rahul Dravid and Andy Flower, who are tied with six 50+ scores.
Rohit also joined an elite list of Indian batsmen who have scored centuries in both innings of a single Test. The others who achieved the feat include Vijay Hazare (1), Sunil Gavaskar (3), Rahul Dravid (2), Virat Kohli (1) and Ajinkya Rahane (1).
With India looking to score quickly on Day 4 in order to force a result in the Test, Rohit was on the offensive, hitting some trademark sixes. He hit seven maximums in the second innings to take his match tally to 13 -- the most by anyone in a Test match -- going past former Pakistan captain Wasim Akram who struck 12 sixes against Zimbabwe in 1996.
