Virat Kohli And Rohit Sharma – Team India’s Chase Masters

Bengaluru:  It was once again up to the big guns of Indian cricket — Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma — who took the mantle in their own hands and guided the team to a comfortable seven-wicket win over Australia in the third and final ODI played at the M. Chinnaswamy on Sunday.

Chasing 287, Rohit and Kohli stitched a 137-run stand for the second wicket. Even though both failed to stay till the end, their show ensured that India chased down the total with 15 balls to spare. This century stand between the duo was their 11th while chasing a total in ODIs — the second-highest by any pair in the format.

Former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar lead the list of maximum century stands in ODI chases. They had stitched 17 century stands in 91 innings together. Third on the list is the Australian duo of Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden who had 10 century stands in 52 innings.

“The talk we had in the middle was that one of us wanted to keep going. At no stage, did we want the momentum to go towards the opposition. I was middling the ball well, and I said I would be the one to take the chances,” Rohit said about his partnership with Kohli.

Rohit and Kohli have scored 4,878 partnership runs between them, which is the second-highest by any India pair. During the Bengaluru ODI, they went past the record of Rohit and Shikhar Dhawan. The duo have accumulated 4,847 runs in partnership. Tendulkar and Ganguly lead this list with 8,227 runs for India in 176 innings together.

India will now travel to New Zealand to play five T20Is, three ODIs and two Tests. The team leaves directly from Bengaluru on Monday.

 (IANS)