Modern great. Rohit Sharma’s earned that tag. But is the current Indian ODI captain one of the greatest batters the nation has produced? Former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar doesn’t think so. His opinion is that Rohit ranks behind the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Rahul Dravid and Virat Kohli when we talk about the highest echelon of Indian batters.
Rohit Sharma, not a Test great
For Manjrekar, lack of success is the chink in Rohit’s armour. He only scored 12 Test hundreds, only two of which came outside of India. For context, Tendulkar scored 17 hundreds in SENA nations (South Africa, England, New Zealand, and Australia), while Kohli and Dravid hit 12 and 10 centuries, respectively. Gavaskar scored 17 Test hundreds against WAPE (West Indies, Australia, Pakistan, and England), who were the best teams during his time.
“Rohit Sharma does not fit in the All-Time Indian Batting Great list because we’re talking about legends like Gavaskar, Tendulkar, Dravid, and Virat. Rohit does not quite make it there.
His easy domination in limited-overs cricket was always pleasing, almost making 300 runs in one ODI innings. But when you talk of an all-time Indian batting great, Test cricket holds more weightage. I don’t think he made a big impact in that format,” Manjrekar said on Doordarshan’s The Great Indian Cricket Show.
White-ball great
However, the former Mumbai batter reckons that if we only talk about limited-overs cricket, Rohit is up there. He’s the 10th-highest scorer in ODIs and 6th among openers. No one has scored more runs than him in T20Is. Rohit’s leadership also shines in the format, and how he brought about a white-ball revolution for India after the 2022 T20 World Cup will continue to earn him praise long after he retires.
“But if you look at one-day cricket, selflessness, or captainship, then you have to mention Rohit Sharma. Especially after the 2023 World Cup, the love people have for him is on another level. People saw that he was never thinking about himself; he was willing to sacrifice his own interests for the team’s advantage. That’s his real speciality,” Manjrekar concluded.
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