The Indian cricket team's captain, Rohit Sharma, smashed Afghanistan's bowlers all over the ground as he played one of the finest knocks in the history of the World Cup at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Wednesday.
Rohit, 36, notched up a 63-ball hundred tonight — his seventh in World Cup history — breaking the record of his countryman, Sachin Tendulkar, of scoring the most tons in the mega event.
The 36-year-old scored his seventh ton in just his 19th World Cup innings, he is followed by Tendulkar who scored six centuries in 44 innings.
Afghanistan's bowlers had no place to hide as they were terrorised by the Hitman's blistering batting display. Sharma scored 131 off just 84 balls, his knock included 16 fours and five sixes.
With Virat Kohli and KL Rahul already in astounding form as the two guided the struggling Indian side to a victory against Australia on October 8, the Indian captain's impressive knock surely sent serious signals to all the other teams who are yet to face the Blues.
By the time this story was filed, India were batting 212-2 in 27 overs.
Earlier today, Sharma became the batter with the most sixes in international cricket.
The 36-year-old totalled an impressive 555 maximums in only 473 innings, surpassing the West Indies' legendary Chris Gayle, who amassed 553 sixes in 551 innings.
The 'Hitman' boasted 77 sixes in Test cricket, 296 in ODIs, and 182 in T20I cricket. Notably, he holds the record of being the fastest batter to reach 550 sixes in international cricket.
However, in ODI cricket, Rohit is ranked third in the list of players with the most sixes. Pakistan's Shahid Afridi (351 sixes) and Gayle (331 sixes) are the only two players to have more maximums than the 36-year-old in the 50-over format.
It must be noted that batting first, Afghanistan set a 273-run target for India courtesy of a 121-run partnership between their skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi and Azmatullah Omarzai with the former contributing 80 runs, and the latter 62.
Jasprit Bumrah was the pick of the bowlers for the home side with his fantastic 4-39 spell in 10 overs while all-rounder Hardik Pandya was the second highest wicket-taker with 2 scalps to his name.
- Rohit Sharma
