Dubai: Mumbai Indians’ skipper Rohit Sharma created history by becoming the first Indian cricketer to score 300 sixes in all T20s despite fighting against the odds to keep his team in the Indian Premier League race. His never-say-die attitude ensured his team a six-wicket win over Kings XI Punjab on Friday night.
Sharma is hailed as the ‘hit man’ of Indian cricket for his ability to play aggressive knocks. Some Mumbai fans waved a placard after he broke the record calling him Ro ‘Hit ‘ Sharma.
He reached the 300th mark by hitting Punjabi’s Mujeeb Ur Rehman for a six in the 17th over. His unbeaten knock of 24 in 15 balls contained two sixes and helped Mumbai win with six balls to spare.
According to Gulf News statistician Mohandas Menon, the other Indians who are chasing Sharma’s record are now ten to forty sixes short of the 300 sixes mark. Suresh Raina is on a hot chase with 290 sixes from 270 innings while Sharma crossed 300 sixes in his 267th innings. Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Yurvraj Singh are the other two Indians with most sixes in T20s with 260 and 253 sixes respectively.
Sharma has thus joined the list of great hitters who have more than 300 sixes with Chris Gayle leading the table with 842 sixes followed by Kieron Pollard (525), Brendon McCullum (445), Dwayne Smith (367), Shane Watson (357) and David Warner (319).
However in the IPL, Gayle leads the list for sixes with 290 maximums. Rohit follows with 183 sixes while Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Suresh Raina have smashed 180 sixes each while AB de Villiers is fifth with 179 maximums.
Sharma is focused on his team winning through his aggressive knocks. Almost every time he has hit a half century, Mumbai have won the match. Unfortunately rest of his team’s batting hadn’t clicked when he wanted. In two of the three Mumbai’s victories, Sharma won the man of the match award. After beating Punjab, Sharma remarked: “I think we are still alive. Good performance tonight, and a much-needed win for us. We needed everyone to come and put a collective effort. We started well with the ball. To restrict their batting unit on this pitch at this ground was a great effort. And to chase it down the way we did was really nice. It wasn’t really easy early on but we knew that we had a lot of depth in our batting. It will be a big challenge to continue the winning momentum.”
Sharma deliberately batted down the order to ensure the victory. “The way we went about our chase in the first 10 overs, I felt we needed momentum. So, Hardik (Pandya), the way he plays, was suited to do that. Hence, I held myself back for the end and having played here before, I know what kind of shots work. Always feels good when you finish off the chase,” said Sharma.
Brief scores: Mumbai Indians bt Kings XI Punjab by six wkts. Punjab 174 for 6 in 20 overs (Chris Gayle 50). Mumbai 176 for 4 in 19 overs (Suryakumar Yadav 57, Krunal Pandya 31 n.o, Rohit Sharma 24 n.o) Man of the match: Suryakumar Yadav.
