5 most successful opening batsmen for India in ODIs

Rohit Sharma

The Hitman has been the best limited overs batsman for some time now.

Rohit Sharma's ODI career can easily be divided into two opposite halves. During the first half of his career, he was a young middle order batsman, constantly struggling to score runs whenever he was given the opportunity.

He spent more time warming the benches than he spent scoring runs for the team. After the intermission, he became a different batsman altogether. After being promoted up in the batting order since the management felt he was too good to be left out, Rohit has been one of the best ODI batsmen in the whole world.

Ever since making a jump at the top of the batting order in 2013, Sharma has scored 4492 runs in 91 innings at a staggering average of 54.78, more than 10 points above his career average, and an equally impressive strike rate of 91.28. 14 out of his 16 ODI hundreds have come after he became India's permanent opener, including a record 3 double hundreds. His 264 against Sri Lanka is arguably the best ODI innings of all time.