Robin Uthappa's selflessness amidst Rohit's record knock of 264

Time flies. For a moment, you find it hard to believe that it’s been 3 years since Rohit Sharma’s magnificent knock of 264 runs which struck an apocalypse in the cricketing world. An innings which had 33 boundaries and 9 sixes, the Mumbaikar’s stunning double hundred is highly regarded as one of the best ever ODI innings ever.

However, not many might remember, but a huge credit of that innings also goes to the forgotten Robin Uthappa. India were placed at 276/4 after 40.2 overs when Uthappa came to the crease. Since he was trying to make a statement for his own selection, Uthappa had an opportunity to go for the kill himself and seal his spot in the team.

A selfless knock

That’s when he played one of the most selfless knocks you would ever see. With Rohit in full flow, all he did was rotate the strike and giving the opener the gears to dismantle the Sri Lankan bowling lineup. While the partnership between them was a stupendous 128 runs from 58 balls, Uthappa’s contribution was just 16 runs from 16 balls.

The fact that 12 of them were singles goes on to prove the approach Uthappa exhibited. For the sake of putting a bigger score on the board and allowing his teammate to annihilate a record innings, the Saurashtra batsman let go of an easy opportunity to impress the selectors. While this may not go down in the history books, people who witnessed the spectacle at the Eden Gardens will remember it for a long time.

Robin didn’t get a lot of opportunities later and even missed the flight to the 2015 World Cup. However, he has been a crucial part of the Kolkata Knight Riders setup when it comes to the Indian Premier League. In the domestic arena too, he has been an amazing player for Karnataka before he changed his base to Saurashtra quite recently.