India captain Rohit Sharma has claimed another rare record in the second ODI against England at Cuttack when he hit three sixes in chase of 305.
Rohit moved to 331 sixes in ODIs, surpassing the tally of West Indies legend Chris Gayle to go second in the all-time list. Rohit has reached the count within 259 innings, much faster than Gayle’s 294 innings.
Pakistan legend Shahid Afridi is currently top of the pile with 351 sixes which he achieved in 369 ODI innings over a span of 19 years.
Rohit, who has been out of sorts in the last five months, managed to reach double figures and go past 20 runs for the first time in 11 international innings. Rohit was cautious with the first six balls he played in the innings by taking just a single.
He broke the shackles soon enough, dancing down the track to Gus Atkinson and slashing a boundary to the deep third man. After getting away with that 50-50 shot, Rohit flicked the next ball off his pads sending the ball long beyond deep mid-wicket.
The next six was even better from Rohit as he simply dinked the ball over deep extra cover after pacer Saqib Mahmood gave him slight width on the off side.
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Mahmood was once again the victim of Rohit’s six hitting in the fifth over as the Indian captain charged down the track to whack a length ball straight over the bowler’s head for the third six of the evening.
Within no time, the opener was 29 off 18 balls as his partnership with Shubman Gill reached 48/0 within just 6.1 overs. Gill, who had scored a match-winning 87 in the first game in Nagpur, scored three boundaries in his unbeaten 17 off 19 balls before the game was interrupted due to flood light malfunction at the Barabati Stadium.
Earlier in the day, India managed to restrict the visitors to 304 all out despite opener Ben Duckett scoring 65 and captain Jos Buttler scoring 69. Liam Livingstone lived dangerously but contributed 41 off 32 balls to get England to a decent total. Ravindar Jadeja was pick of the Indian bowlers with 3-35 from his 10 overs.
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