Yuvraj Singh wanted me to break Virender Sehwag’s record: Rohit Sharma on his maiden ODI double century

Rohit Sharma, India’s ODI and T20I vice-captain, said that Yuvraj Singh wished for him to break Virender Sehwag’s record of 219. Sehwag got the runs in 2011 against the West Indies in Indore and 2013, Rohit was on the threshold of topping the ginormous numbers. However, Sharma only managed 209 runs off 158 balls before getting out to Clint McKay in the 50th over.

In the game versus Australia in Bengaluru, Rohit started off in a cautious manner. But once he got the measure of the conditions and the bowling, he cut loose. India posted 383 on the board and won by 57 runs. Apart from Yuvraj, Rohit also said that Dhawan also wanted him to break the record. Rohit made the revelations on Instagram Live with Indian off-spinner Ravi Ashwin.

The expectation in the dressing room is really high: Rohit Sharma

“When I went back after scoring the double century, someone was telling me that if you would have batted another over or so you would have broken Virender Sehwag’s record also,” Rohit was quoted as saying during the chat.

“The expectation in the dressing room is really high. There were three or four guys who wanted me (Rohit) to score 10 or 15 more runs, Yuvi (Yuvraj Singh) was one of them and maybe Shikhar Dhawan too,” he added during the interaction with Ashwin.

Though he couldn’t break the record first time around, in 2014 he made amends. The now 33-year-old notched 264 runs against Sri Lanka at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. The knock was laced with 33 boundaries and nine sixes and he played at a strike-rate of 152.60. It still remains as the highest individual score in the ODI format, albeit a number of them have scored double tons since then.

Rohit also has a double century against Lanka, scored in 2017 at the PCA Stadium in Mohali on December 2017. Last year, he became the first batsman to score five centuries in a single edition of the World Cup. In 224 ODIs for the Men in Blue, Rohit has 9,115 runs with 29 tons and 43 fifties. Even in T20I cricket, he is the only batter with as many as four tons under his belt.