How Captain Cool MS Dhoni Saved Rohit Sharma's Sinking ODI Career?

Anurag Dasgupta

How MSD Saved Rohit [Source: @manishini9/X.com] How MSD Saved Rohit [Source: @manishini9/X.com]

Rohit Sharma is one of the greatest ODI players of all-time, however, it wasn't until 2013 that he finally fulfilled his ultimate potential as a white-ball batter. Prior to 2013, he was an average batter and was also not considered for the 2011 ODI World Cup, but one move from MS Dhoni saved his sinking career.

How MSD saved Rohit Sharma's ODI career

Till the start of 2013, Rohit Sharma was going nowhere in his ODI career and while he boasted all the talent in the books, he wasn't able to truly justify it. However, the then captain of the Indian cricket team, MSD saw something in Rohit and decided to try him out as an opener.

India played against England in an ODI series prior to the Champions Trophy and this is where MSD asked Rohit to open the innings for the nation. The talented batter scored 83 off 93 balls and never looked back.

Then, the Champions Trophy came up and Rohit became the permanent opener alongside Shikhar Dhawan and the opening pair was an instant hit as India captured the title and the Mumbaikar was lauded for his performance. Since then, he has 30 hundreds as an opener and also has 3 double hundreds as well.

Rohit Sharma's ODI record before and after opening

Prior to 2013, Rohit was mainly a middle-order batter and didn't had the best of numbers. In 86 ODI matches, he had 1978 runs, at a strike-rate of 77.94. However, the fortunes changed after opening the batting.

Since 2013, he has accumulated 9190 runs in 187 matches, and the strike-rate has jumped to 96.78.