Rohit Sharma’s last international game of 2019 yielded another milestone in a record-filled year, after he eclipsed Sanath Jayasuriya’s 22-year-old run tally for most runs by an opener in a calendar year.
Rohit Sharma ended 2019 with 2442 international runs across Tests, ODIs and T20Is; in one-day internationals alone, he stacked up 1490 runs, which is the best tally among all ODI batsmen this year.
With the seventh run in his innings of 63 in the third ODI against West Indies, Rohit surpassed Jayasuriya’s tally of 2387 runs as an opener in 1997, achieved in 44 innings and over 37 matches. Rohit’s innings in Cuttack was his 47th this year in as many games.
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Rohit is only the second Indian opener after Virender Sehwag to amass more than 2000 runs in a single calendar year across formats. Sehwag had scored 2355 runs in 46 innings during a prolific 2008, which also saw him hit the second of his two triple centuries in Test cricket.
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Out of the 2442 runs, 648 came in the 2019 World Cup, where he finished as the leading run-getter in the tournament, slamming five centuries. He hit five more centuries in the year, three of which came against the red ball, after he was bumped to the opener’s slot in Tests.
Overall, the most runs in a single calendar year belong to Kumar Sangakkara, who garnered 2868 runs in 57 innings across a purple patch in 2014.
