India’s Rohit Sharma on Sunday broke Sanath Jayasuriya’s 22-year-old record for most runs in a calendar year by an opener across formats.
Coming into the third and final One-day International against the West Indies in Cuttack, Rohit was only nine short of eclipsing the former Sri Lankan captain, who scored 2,387 runs in 1997. When the Rohit got out for a run-a-ball 63 at the Barabati Stadium, he aggregated 2,442 runs, which has included 10 hundreds and as many half centuries in the year, averaging 53.08 in 47 innings.
Rohit went past Jayasuriya’s record when he took a single off a Sheldon Cottrell delivery. Among the other notable openers who had good seasons are Virender Sehwag (2,355 runs) in 2008 and Australia’s Matthew Hayden (2,349 runs) in 2003. Rohit is also at the top spot in the calendar run-scoring charts in ODIs with 1,490.
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