Indian opener Rohit Sharma was on Sunday declared Man of the Match after he pulled back a sparkling knock of 140 runs to help the Men in Blue beat arch-rivals Pakistan by 89 runs via Duckworth-Lewis method (D/L) in a high-octane clash of the 2019 International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground in Manchester.
Put in to bat first, Sharma not only smashed his 24th ODI ton but also notched up good partnerships of 136 and 98 runs with opening partner KL Rahul (57) and Indian skipper Virat Kohli (77), respectively to help the Men in Blue put a formidable total of 336 for five in their stipulated 50 overs.
En route to his knock, Sharma also smashed 14 boundaries and three sixes. As a result, he also broke Mahendra Singh Dhoni's record of most sixes by an Indian in ODIs. Sharma has smashed a total of 356 sixes so far, thus surpassing Dhoni's record of 355 sixes. (Full Scorecard: ICC World Cup 2019, India vs Pakistan)
While picking up his Man of the Match award, the Indian opener revealed that he got quite upset when he was caught by Wahab Riaz at short fine leg on a Hasan Ali delivery in the 39th over.
"I was unhappy (when I got out), particularly the way I played that shot. He just pushed mid-on back and brought fine leg in, a little misjudgment from my side. When you're set you want to get as many runs as possible. Trust me, wasn't thinking of a double hundred. Got out at the wrong time, the partnership was becoming solid and we wanted to kill the game," ESPNcricinfo quoted Sharma as saying.
Chasing a revised target of 302 runs after rain played the spoilsport and reduced the match to 40 overs per side, Vijay Shankar, Hardik Pandya and Kuldeep Yadav all bagged two wickets each to help India restrict Pakistan to 212 for six. Fakhar Zaman (62), Babar Azam (48) and Imad Wasim (46) were some of the notable contributors for Pakistan.
Overall, Rohit has amassed a total of 8329 runs in 209 ODIs he played for India at an average of 48.71 and strike rate of 88.29.
