India's Rohit Sharma, left, raises his bat to celebrate scoring a century during first day of the third and last cricket test match between India and South Africa in Ranchi
Indian batsman Rohit Sharma continued with his fine form in red-ball cricket as he notched up his sixth Test century on Saturday against South Africa in the third Test in Ranchi. It was also his third Test century in the three-match Test series after getting the triple-figure mark in back-to-back innings in his debut game as an opener in Visakhapatnam. With the century, Rohit equalled Sachin Tendulkar's elite record in international cricket and also broke Windies batsman Shimron Hetmyer's world record.
His sixth Test century was also Rohit's ninth hundred across formats in 2019. Six out of those nine were scored in World Cup 2019, all coming in consecutive innings as he surpassed Kumar Sangakkara's record. Rohit had finished the campaign as the leading run-getter. Rohit is overall the fourth opener to score nine centuries in a calendar year in international cricket after Sachin (1998), former South African skipper Graeme Smith (2005) and Australian cricketer David Warner (2016).
Rohit also joined Sunil Gavaskar in an elite list of most centuries by Indian openers in a Test series. Gavaskar holds the top spot having twice notched up four centuries in a single contest - in 1970/71 series and in 1978/79 series against West Indies. Gavaskar has also scored three centuries in a Test series - against Australia in 1977/78 series.
Rohit, who now stands at an unbeaten score of 117 (at the time of writing), has laced his innings with six maximums which has taken his tally of 17 in the series. Hence, he surpassed Hetmyer with his tally of 17 sixes to hold the world record of most sixes in a Test series. It is also the most in 2019 as he overhauled England's Ben Stokes (15).
His 117* also took his run tally to 434 in the series and en route he surpassed former Indian skipper Mohammad Azharuddin to become the highest-scoring Indian batsman in a single series in the rivalry contest. Overall, he stands third after Jacques Kallis (498) and Hashim Amla (490).
