Rohit Sharma

Early life

Sharma was born on 30 April 1987 in Bansod, Nagpur, Maharashtra. His mother Purnima Sharma comes from Visakhapatnam. His father Gurunath Sharma worked as a caretaker of a transport firm storehouse. Sharma was raised by his grandparents and uncles in Borivali because of his father's low income. He would visit his parents, who lived in a single-room house in Dombivli, only during weekends. He has a younger brother, Vishal Sharma.

Sharma joined a cricket camp in 1999 with his uncle's money. His coach at the camp was Dinesh Lad who asked him to change his school to Swami Vivekanand International School, where Lad was the coach and which had better cricket facilities. Sharma recollects, "I told him I couldn't afford it, but he got me a scholarship. So for four years I didn't pay a penny, and did well in my cricket." Sharma started as an off spinner who could bat a bit, before Lad noticed Sharma's batting abilities and promoted him from number eight to open the innings. He excelled in the Harris and Giles Shield school cricket tournaments, scoring a century on debut as opener.

Domestic

Rohit Sharma made his List A debut for West Zone against Central Zone in the Deodhar Trophy in March 2005;, at Gwalior. It was his unbeaten innings of 142 in 123 balls against North Zone at Udaipur in the same tournament, that brought him into the limelight. Performances for the India A sides in Abu Dhabi and Australia followed, leading to him being selected for the 30 member probables list for the Champions Trophy, although he did not make the final squad. This was before he had made his Ranji Trophy debut. He was also selected for the NKP Salve Challenger Trophy.

Sharma made his First-class debut for India A against New Zealand A, at Darwin in July 2006. He made his Ranji Trophy debut for his First-class side Mumbai in the 2006/2007 season. Though he was unable to contribute much in the initial matches, he scored 205 off 267 balls in the match against Gujarat. Mumbai went on to win the tournament with Sharma scoring a half century in the final against Bengal.

In October 2013, upon the retirement of Ajit Agarkar, and owing to a successful captaincy stint in the IPL for Mumbai Indians, where he helped to win the IPL as well as the Champions League T20, Sharma was appointed as the captain of the Mumbai Ranji team for the 2013–14 season.

International

Rohit Sharma was first selected for the limited-overs matches on India's tour to Ireland in 2007. He made his One Day International debut against Ireland at Belfast, although he did not bat in the match.

Rohit Sharma eventually made his mark on the international stage on 20 September 2007, when he led India to victory by scoring an unbeaten 50 (which came off 40 deliveries) against South Africa in the 2007 ICC World Twenty20. The win reserved India a berth in the semifinals of the tournament. At one stage India were 61–4, but his partnership of 85 runs with skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni helped India to post a total of 153/5. He was eventually declared Man of the Match. Sharma then proceeded to score 30 runs off 16 balls in the final against Pakistan.

Rohit Sharma scored his maiden ODI half-century against Pakistan, at Jaipur on 18 November 2007. and was selected as part of India's 16-man squad for the CB series in Australia. Here, he scored 235 runs at an average of 33.57 with 2 fifties, including his score of 66 in the 1st final at Sydney partnering Sachin Tendulkar for most of India's successful run chase.

However, his ODI performances suffered a downturn after this and his middle-order position was taken over by Suresh Raina, and eventually, Virat Kohli took his position as the reserve batsman.

In December 2009, he scored a triple century in the Ranji Trophy and was recalled to the ODI team for the tri-nations tournament in Bangladesh as Tendulkar opted to rest in the series. However, Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina were selected ahead of him in the playing eleven, and he did not play in any of India's five matches.

Rohit Sharma was called to the Indian Test team in February 2010 as the only reserve batsman. When V. V. S. Laxman failed to recover from an injury, Sharma was set to make his debut, but injured himself playing football in the warm-up on the first morning of the match. It was too late to bring in a replacement batsman, so the reserve wicket-keeper Wriddhiman Saha had to play as a specialist batsman. Since then Suresh Raina, Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli overtook him and made their Test debuts in the middle order.

He scored his maiden ODI century (114) against Zimbabwe on 28 May 2010. He followed it up with another century in the next match of the tri-series against Sri Lanka on 30 May 2010 by scoring 101 not out.

Following the poor form in South Africa series held just before the World Cup, he was dropped from the Indian squad for 2011 World Cup.

He was selected for the West Indies tour of 2011 after the IPL in a squad where senior batsmen such as Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and skipper MS Dhoni were rested, and Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir were out to injuries. The side was captained by Suresh Raina with Harbhajan Singh as his deputy. He contributed 26 off 23 balls with two sixes in the only T20I at Queen's Park Oval and strung a 71-run partnership with Subramaniam Badrinath leading to an Indian victory.

In the ODI series that followed, he carried on with his good form. The first ODI was also played at Queen's Park Oval. Rohit was elected man of the match for his 68 not out of 75 balls with three fours and a six. In the third ODI played at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Antigua; Sharma scored a matching-winning 86 of 91 balls. Rohit along with Harbhajan Singh got India out of trouble to win the match after they were reduced to 92 for 6. He was widely appraised for his calm and matured performance. Sharma won his first Man of the Series award for excellent batting performance throughout the ODI series. His good form continued as he bagged another Man of the series award against West Indies again but this time on Indian soil. He was part of the squad selected to play in the Australian series.

In 2013, he was experimented as new opening batsman for India along with the Shikhar Dhawan for the Champions Trophy. The successful starts achieved by this opening pair helped India win the Champions Trophy and Tri-nation series in the West Indies. His good form continued in the home series against Australia when he scored a 141 not out in Jaipur and 209 runs off 158 balls, in Bangalore and with 16 sixes, he broke the world record for most sixes hit in an ODI innings.

In November 2013, during Sachin Tendulkar's farewell Test series, Sharma made his Test debut at Eden Gardens in Kolkata against the West Indies. He scored a 177 which was the second best score on debut by an Indian behind Shikhar Dhawan. Sharma became one of the few Indian players who scored a century on Test debut. He followed it up with an 111 not out at his home ground at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai becoming the third Indian cricketer to score back-to-back centuries in the first two tests—a feat which was achieved by Sourav Ganguly in 1996 in England and Mohammad Azharuddin in 1984 who scored centuries in his first three tests.

In 2014, he became the first person to score more than 250 runs in One-Day international cricket. He scored 264 against Sri Lanka at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata. With this innings, he became the first player to score two double hundred in ODIs. His innings of 264 is the highest score by a batsman in an ODI, surpassing 219 by Virender Sehwag.

On 2 October 2015, in South Africa's tour of India, Sharma scored 106 in the first T20I at HPCA Stadium, Dharamsala. With that, he became the second Indian cricketer to have scored centuries in all formats of the game. On 11 October, in the first ODI of the tour, he scored 150 off 133 balls, in a losing cause while chasing South Africa's total of 303. In the 2015–16 tour of Australia, he scored two consecutive hundreds in the ODI series and a 99 in the final game. Having scored 441 runs in five games, he was the top-scorer and was named the Man-of-the-Series.

Indian Premier League

Rohit Sharma is one of the most successful players in Indian Premier League and has the unique record of finishing the match by scoring a last-ball six. He has one century and a hat-trick to his name. He is also one of the few players to score more than 4000 runs in the IPL.

Sharma was signed up by the Deccan Chargers franchise for a sum of US$ 750,000 a year in 2008. He was one of the leading run scorers in the 2008 IPL season with 404 runs at an average of 36.72. He also held the coveted Orange Cap for a brief period.

In the 2009 season he was appointed as the vice-captain of the Deccan Chargers. In a match against Kolkata Knight Riders where 21 was required off the last over, Sharma scored 26 off the over from Mashrafe Mortaza to seal a win. He was the fifth bowler to take an IPL hat-trick

In the 2011 auction, he was sold for US$ 2 million to the Mumbai Indians.

Rohit scored his first IPL century against the Kolkata Knight Riders in 2012, getting 109* in 60 balls. He was also declared the Man of the Match.

He was promoted as the permanent captain of the Mumbai Indians in 2013, as Ricky Ponting was benched due to poor form. Mumbai Indians under his captaincy won the IPL title for the first time. It was a terrific season for him as a captain as the his team went on to win the Champions League T20 as well.

In 2015, he led MI to win the IPL title yet again by beating Chennai with a margin of 41 runs in the final. He also won the Man of The Match award in the finals.

In 2017, the Mumbai Indians finished at the top of the table and also went on to win the final under his captaincy. He is the only skipper to have led his team to win the IPL three times.

Personal life

In April 2015, Sharma became engaged to his childhood friend Ritika Sajdeh. They got married on 13 December 2015.Ritika is his sports manager.

Records

International centuries

Sharma has scored three Test, seventeen ODI, and two T20I centuries. He is the only player to score three double centuries in ODIs.

Other awards