India vs Afghanistan: Rohit Sharma breaks World Cup century record

(CTN News) – The Indian captain Rohit Sharma reached a landmark milestone on Wednesday by becoming the player to score the most number of centuries in World Cups after scoring a blistering century against Afghanistan in his side’s second game of the tournament.

He scored his seventh World Cup ton in just 19 innings of the mega event, when he faced Afghanistan at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, where the 36-year-old right-handed batsman took Afghan bowlers to task.

In 44 World Cup innings, Sharma scored six tons, breaking the record held by fellow Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, who retired from competitive cricket after the 2003 World Cup.

As an added bonus, the Indian skipper also became the batter with the most sixes in international cricket as a whole.

In only 473 innings of cricket, Sharma has been able to accumulate an impressive total of 555 maximums, surpassing the legendary Chris Gayle of the West Indies, who amassed 553 sixes in 551 innings.

During his career, the “Hitman” scored 77 sixes in Test cricket, 296 in one-day internationals (ODIs) and 182 in Twenty20 international cricket. There is no doubt that he holds the record for being the fastest batter in the history of international cricket to reach 550 sixes.

Despite this, Rohit is ranked third on the list of India players with the most sixes in ODI cricket, with 16 sixes. As far as the 50-over format is concerned, the only players to have more sixes than the 36-year-old are Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi (351 sixes) and Gayle (331 sixes).

“I felt it was a good pitch to bat on. I was backing myself to play my natural game,” Rohit said after he collected the player-of-the-match award.

“It’s my responsibility to make sure the India team has a good start to the season. It’s something I’ve done for a long time and I’m very passionate about,” he said.

Having batted first, Afghanistan set a 273-run target for India in the first innings thanks to a 121-run partnership between their skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi and Azmatullah Omarzai, with the former contributing 80 runs while the latter contributed 62 runs.

As the top bowler for the home side, Jasprit Bumrah stood out with an impressive 4-39 spell in his 10 overs, while all-rounder Hardik Pandya was the second-highest wicket-taker with two scalps to his name.

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