Entering his name into the history books of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Saturday, India captain Rohit Sharma achieved a monumental feat during the recently concluded encounter between Mumbai Indians (MI) and Punjab Kings (PBKS). Record-time winners Mumbai Indians led by veteran opener Rohit were hoping to revive their campaign when the Men In Blue locked horns with a Shikhar Dhawan-less side at the famous Wankhede Stadium.
Leading MI’s run-chase in the high-scoring thriller at the Wankhede, Rohit ended up playing an entertaining knock after the hosts lost opener Ishan Kishan for cheap in the second over. Though Rohit missed out on notching up a quick-fire half-century against Punjab Kings, the MI skipper scripted history by achieving a massive feat in the cash-rich league. Nicknamed the Hitman for his aggressive batting style, Rohot became the first Indian player to hit 250 sixes in the IPL. The Mumbai captain has smoked 250 sixes in 233 matches of the cash-rich league.
Only legendary batters Chris Gayle (357) and AB de Villiers (251) have smashed more sixes than India’s Rohit in the world’s richest T20 league. While Rohit added another feather to his illustrious cap, his teammate Suryakumar Yadav also managed to rewrite history in the shortest format of the game.
After playing a series of forgetful knocks, Suryakumar returned to form on Saturday as the top-ranked T20 batter played a brilliant knock to keep Mumbai in the hunt for their fourth win of the new season. Suryakumar smashed 57 off 26 balls against the Punjab-based franchise in the IPL 2023. The premier batter also completed 6,000 T20 runs during the high-scoring encounter between Mumbai and Punjab. Suryakumar is the fastest Indian batter to complete 6,000 runs in T20 cricket.
Only Chris Gayle, Andre Russell, Glenn Maxwell and Kieron Pollard are ahead of Suryakumar in the elite list. Though Suryakumar and Rohit played quick-fire knocks for Mumbai, their batting heroics went in vain as MI lost the match by 13 runs. With three wins and three defeats in six matches, Rohit’s MI side is placed seventh on the IPL 2023 points table.
“We made some errors in the field which can happen, not gonna look too much into that. Just keep our heads high, we have won three and lost three, pretty even-stevens at the moment. There is a lot of time left in the tournament. We can’t look down and start worrying about things. Yes, we didn’t come out on top today. We made some errors but something to go back and look into. Quite happy with the way those two guys (Cameron Green and Sky) batted today and they kept us in the game till the end,” Rohit said after the match.
