News Sports Cricket Rohit Sharma scores dogged century on day 1 of Rajkot Test, draws level with AB de Villiers

Rohit Sharma scores dogged century on day 1 of Rajkot Test, draws level with AB de Villiers

Rohit scored his last Test ton against West Indies in the Dominica Test in July 2023. The India skipper hit two sixes during his knock and surpassed MS Dhoni to hammer the second-most number of sixes in Tests. He is behind Virender Sehwag who hit 91 sixes in his Test career.

Rohit Sharma. Image Source : APRohit Sharma.

India skipper Rohit Sharma scored a hard-fought century on day one of the third Test in Rajkot to take India out of a precarious situation. Rohit played a captain's knock and rescued India from 33/3 alongside Ravindra Jadeja who also notched up another fifty in Test cricket.

This is Rohit's 11th hundred in the red-ball format and his 47th international century. His dogged ton has helped him move past former England captain Joe Root in terms of most international hundreds scored across formats. Root has scored 46 international centuries.

The 36-year-old India player has also drawn level with South Africa's modern-day great AB de Villiers. De Villiers hit 47 hundreds during the course of his illustrious international career. 

Notably, England dictated proceedings with the ball in hand to headline the opening session on day one after Rohit won the toss and chose to bat first. Mark Wood, who made his return to the playing XI for the third Test dented India early as he removed the double-centurion from the last Test.

Wood was on the money again when he outfoxed Shubman Gill and got him caught behind for a duck. India had pinned their hopes on Gill as he was coming into the first innings on the back of a resilient hundred in the Vizag Test. However, it all went pear-shaped for the young batter as he got a feather to Ben Foakes while feeling for the ball outside his off stump.

India's Playing XI:

Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj

England's Playing XI:

Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes (c), Ben Foakes (wk), Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley, Mark Wood, James Anderson