Australia pacer Josh Hazlewood heaped rich praise on India’s limited-overs vice-captain and opener Rohit Sharma, calling his records in the white-ball cricket phenomenal.
Hazlewood also said that Rohit Sharma’s greatest strength is the way he plays short balls with such ease.
“He’s got many. I think it’s just with how the ease that he plays, especially anything back of a length, anything short, just puts it away with such ease. It’s just an area in which he gets better, I think. He never looks to bludgeon the ball, just pure class and elegance. His records, especially in white-ball cricket, is phenomenal,” Josh Hazlewood said on the Cricket Connected Show on Star Sports.
Rohit burst on the scene in 2007, but it was only in 2013 that he was promoted to the opening slot in limited-overs. It proved to be a masterstroke as runs flowed almost at will from his bat.
Rohit Sharma went onto slam as many as 3 double tons including the highest individual ODI score. A record that stands to this day. In 2019 he got the top slot in Tests and scored hundreds almost at will.
As an opener, Rohit has scored 7148 runs from 140 ODIs at an average of 58.11 with 27 centuries, whereas in T20Is, he’s tallied 2313 runs from 76 innings and slammed four centuries, the most by a player in the format.
“Yeah, absolutely. I mean the batters through our time, obviously are the frustrating ones to bowl to,” Hazlewood said.
“Even when someone who came quicker like Mitchell Starc or Pat Cummins’ bowling to those guys, it doesn’t seem fast and that’s probably the one thing that sticks out when you are bowling to these types of players.”
