India captain Rohit Sharma on Sunday slammed his 32 ODI century, his first in the format since October 2023. Rohit achieved the milestone during the 2nd ODI against England at the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack. This was Rohit’s first century in any format since March last year, 338 days to be precise, while his last ODI ton came against Afghanistan at the ODI World Cup on October 11, 2023 (487 days). On Sunday, Rohit reached triple figures in 76 balls.
Rohit’s knock comes as a huge relief for India with the Champions Trophy set to get underway in exactly 10 days from now.
Chasing a big total of 305 runs, India openers Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill started off the innings with a positive intent.
Rohit started attacking the fast bowlers from the first over. Later on, Gill also joined the party. Before the stop of play, Rohit had scored an unbeaten 29 runs whereas Gill scored 17* runs.
Earlier in the day, the Three Lions skipper Jos Buttler won the toss and elected to bat first.
For India, Virat Kohli comes back after recovery from a sore knee and Yashasvi Jaiswal sits out. Varun Chakravarthy is also set to make his ODI debut. On the other hand, for England, Mark Wood, Gus Atkinson and Jamie Overton come back into the playing XI.
In the first innings, the Jos Buttler-led side was bowled out for 304 runs in 49.5 overs. Knocks came from Ben Duckett and Joe Root.
Duckett smashed 65 runs off 56 balls which was laced with 10 boundaries. Following Duckett’s wicket, right-hand batter Joe Root took the responsibility of scoring the runs for his national team. Root slammed 69 runs from 72 balls with the help of six fours before going back to the dressing room in the 43rd over on the bowling of Jadeja.
Jadeja was the pick of the bowlers for India. The 36-year-old player snapped three wickets in his spell of 10 overs where he conceded 35 runs and bowled one maiden over in his spell. Three wickets came through a run-out, out of which two came in the last over of the innings. One wicket each was bagged by Hardik Pandya, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana, and Mohammed Shami in their respective spells.
(With ANI Inputs)
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