SK Flashback: When it all began for Rohit Sharma in Indian colours

Seven years before Eden Gardens saw the most spectacular innings in ODI cricket; Rohit Sharma was just getting ready to go out to bat against the mighty South Africans in the 24^th match of the inaugural ICC T20 World Cup in South Africa.

Rohit Sharma was a relatively unknown player in the Indian squad during the ICC World T20 having just made his debut in the only ODI against Ireland during the India tour of England and Ireland in June of the same year. He did not get an opportunity to bat in the match as India thrashed Ireland by nine wickets.

He made his T20 debut during the historic match against England in the ICC World T20 where Yuvraj smashed six sixes off Stuart Broad’s bowling. He did not get to bat in that game either.

His break finally came in the fixture against the home team South Africa as he came out to bat when India was in a spot of bother at 33-3 after five overs. The whole of India got a glimpse of what to expect from Rohit Sharma as he played a match-saving innings scoring a sumptuous half century off 40 balls with two sixes and seven fours. His partnership of 85 runs with captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni proved to be extremely vital as India went on to score 153 in their allotted 20 overs.

During his innings, we got to see some lavish strokes off the bat of Rohit Sharma and witnessed some clean hitting as he smashed two glorious sixes over square leg and midwicket. Fans saw his malleable wrists in action and Sharma impressed everybody with his ability to find gaps in the field with ease.

India went on to win that match thanks to a splendid bowling spell by R.P Singh and S Sreesanth, and as we all know, they went on to win the tournament as well as they defeated Pakistan in a thriller of a final at the Wanderers stadium in Johannesburg.

Since then, Rohit Sharma has been a regular in the Indian cricket team and produced many great innings and has broken numerous records, including the highest individual score in an ODI (264, against Sri Lanka), and being the only batsman to score two double centuries in an ODI.