Sunil Gavaskar Sets Retirement Target For Rohit Sharma After "Disappointing" 92 vs West Indies

Sunil Gavaskar critical of Rohit Sharma's 92 in 3rd ODI against West Indies© Getty | BCCI

India legend Sunil Gavaskar didn't hide his frustration after seeing Rohit Sharma, the team's senior-most player, fail to score a hundred in the third ODI against the West Indies on Saturday. As India lost the game in New Chandigarh, Gavaskar said that he was disappointed to see Rohit fail to reach the triple-digit score. The comment comes despite the fact that Rohit scored 92 in the match, falling short of a century by just 8 runs. However, for Gavaskar, it is important that Rohit finishes his career with more ODI centuries than his age by the time he retires from the game, which is expected to happen after next year's World Cup.

At present, Rohit is sitting on 35 hundreds in ODI cricket. By the time the ODI World Cup concludes next year, Rohit will be 40. Rohit could have scored his 36th hundred on Saturday, and Gavaskar admitted to feeling frustrated after seeing him fail to do so.

"The reason I was disappointed with Rohit getting out on 92 is because he didn't get a hundred and he might possibly quit international cricket after the end of the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2027. And at that particular point in time, when he decides to call it a day, I personally would like Rohit to have more ODI hundreds than his age. Had he gotten a century in the third ODI, he would have moved closer to achieving that feat with his 36th hundred. For me, it's a special thing when a player's hundreds outnumber his age at retirement. It shows the kind of career they have had and the standard they have maintained for so many years. That is why I really want Rohit to reach that mark. In my last year of international cricket, I wanted to get as many Test centuries as my age, and I got out in the 90s thrice. If I'd got those hundreds, then my centuries would have matched the age of my retirement, which was 38," Gavaskar said on JioStar's 'Haier Cricket Live'.

Gavaskar, a legendary batter of his time, also said that he sees a slight change in Rohit's batting template these days compared to the way he played in the 2023 ODI World Cup. Gavaskar had no hesitation in claiming that the Rohit from three years ago was a lot more fearsome, going berserk from the first ball. In comparison, the Rohit of today attaches far more importance to his own wicket.

"A slight change has appeared in the batting template that Rohit himself set as the captain for the 2023 ODI World Cup, where he was going bang-bang from the first ball, irrespective of the possibility of getting out early. Now he recognises that his wicket is valuable. In that 2023 World Cup, he got the team off to great starts, but he's not a batsman who will score just 30-40 runs. He's a hundred-maker! And therefore, I'm happy to see him score big runs. Yes, I know he missed out on a well-deserved ton in this match, but he got a hundred in the previous game. So, the fact that he's recognising that his job as a batter is also to get a hundred, and if he scores big, he gets a hundred in 70-80 deliveries-which is helpful for the team because that is a great scoring rate in a 50-over game and it also keeps him away from the social media critics of slow batting," Gavaskar asserted.

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