Bengaluru, January 19: India opener Rohit Sharma touched yet another milestone as he completed 9000 ODI runs in the third ODI against Australia here at M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Sunday (January 19).
The stylish right-handed batsman from Mumbai required just two runs to enter the elite club before this game and reached the milestone after getting off the mark with a double off Pat Cummins. Before the start of the series between Australia and India, Rohit needed just 56 runs to this club.
Rohit Sharma becomes fastest to 7000 ODI runs as opener
The Hitman took 217 innings to get to this milestone and became the third-fastest batsman to 9000 runs in the 50 overs format. He's only behind Virat Kohli (194 innings) and AB de Villiers (208 innings) to this club.
In doing so, the 32-year-old cricketer leapfrogged legendary batsmen like Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara.
Fewest innings to 9000 ODI runs:
- 194 Virat Kohli
- 208 AB de Villiers
- 217 ROHIT SHARMA
- 228 Sourav Ganguly
- 235 Sachin Tendulkar
- 239 Brian Lara
Fewest inngs to 9000 ODI runs
— Deepu Narayanan (@deeputalks) January 19, 2020
194 V Kohli
208 AB de Villiers
217 ROHIT SHARMA
228 S Ganguly
235 S Tendulkar
239 B Lara#INDvAUS
Earlier on Friday (January 17), the Mumbaikar surpassed Tendulkar and Hashim Amla to become the fastest cricketer to complete 7000 ODI runs as an opener. The Mumbaikar, who was recently named the ICC ODI Player of the Year 2019, completed 7000 ODI runs as an opener after completing 18 runs in the Rajkot ODI.
9000 and counting....
— BCCI (@BCCI) January 19, 2020
Rohit Sharma breaches the 9K mark in ODIs 👏👏 pic.twitter.com/UV3nBNJv7g
He took just 137 innings to achieve this milestone, which is 10 innings less than legendary South Africa opener Hashim Amla. Amla completed 7000 ODI runs as an opener in 147 innings while India's iconic cricketer Sachin Tendulkar took 160 innings to get to this milestone.