Rohit Sharma celebrates after scoring a century against West Indies in the first ODI at Guwahati.
India completely dominated the West Indies in the first ODI at Guwahati and won the match by eight wickets - all thanks to the blistering knocks by Indian skipper Virat Kohli and his deputy Rohit Sharma. India chased the target of 323 runs in just 42.1 overs. Rohit scored an unbeaten 152 runs off 117 balls and registered his name in the record books. The ‘Hitman’ scored his sixth 150+ score, which is the highest by any player in the ODI cricket.
The Indian vice-captain overtook 'Master Blaster' Sachin Tendulkar and suspended Australian opener David Warner to top the list. They both have scored 150 or more five times while ‘Universe Boss’ Chris Gayle is third on the list alongside Sanath Jayasuriya and Hashim Amla with four 150+ scores.
Rohit is one of the most consistent and destructive openers of modern-day cricket. During the 323 chase, he started slowly and was complementing his skipper Kohli who was taking the Windies bowler to all over the park. However, after scoring 30 runs, the Mumbai-born batsman put his foot on the accelerator and thrashed the Windies bowlers by hitting 15 fours and 8 huge sixes.
Rohit had a 246-run partnership with Kohli which took away the game from the Windies team right away. Kohli and Rohit are also dominating the ICC ODI rankings as they both are placed on the top two spots. ‘Run Machine’ Kohli was very much satisfied after the match and said, "It feels pretty good. It was very convincing for us. West Indies put up a really good total. 320 targets are very tricky, but we knew we could do it with a big partnership. It's never too difficult when you have Rohit at the other end."
"Among the top three, I mostly take the anchor role because both Rohit and Shikhar (Dhawan) are good stroke-makers," he said.
The second match of the series will be played on the 24th October at Visakhapatnam.
