On this Day 15 years ago:
On this day fifteen years ago, Rohit Sharma recorded his first international fifty against South Africa during the T20 World Cup. When he came, India was struggling at 33/3 and quickly fell to 61/4. He and MS Dhoni together created a winning combination.
India eliminated South Africa from the T20 world cup in 2007, romping to a comfortable 37-run victory that guaranteed a spot in the semi-final against Australia. Rudra Pratap Singh’s stunning session of 4 for 13 and Rohit’s rapid fifty both contributed to this result.
In his maiden innings of the tournament, Rohit Sharma played some exquisite strokes in the cover zone, creating space and lofting the ball cleanly over the infield. He also focused on the midwicket area, capping off the innings with a majestic six off a full toss from Johan van der Wath over square leg. India had only 57 on the scoreboard halfway through, Rohit Sharma continued to time the ball superbly after the glitch, and the South Africans started to lose their cool over fielding mistakes.
Rohit Sharma was awarded the Player of the match for his brilliant 50 runs from 40 balls, after the match when questioned about entering the game in a vulnerable scenario, he responded “I’ve already played in similar circumstances. I am used to it “. Rohit Sharma remarks on the total India placed on the board, “We felt it was enough.” “In the wicket, a lot was going on. Our bowlers also performed admirably.”
He further added saying “For the past few months, we have put a lot of effort into improving our fielding. Everything turned out well today.”
Graeme Smith captain for that match for South Africa was even disappointed to form his side’s performance and was feeling bad about the result as they were kicked out of the tournament. He was quoted saying “It’s hugely disappointing. We’ve played some superb cricket and to think we’ve lost only one game and are out of the tournament, it’s very disappointing.”
Rohit Sharma started his run-scoring with this fifty and he never looked back, now in the present day he is considered of the best T20 openers of all time, he even won the Indian Premier League title 6 times most by any player in the history of IPL.
