India captain Rohit Sharma surpassed Sachin Tendulkar with a record seventh Cricket World Cup century to guide his side to an eight-wicket victory over Afghanistan at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Wednesday.
The hosts, who were chasing 273 for victory in New Delhi, rode on Rohit’s 131 to reach their target in 35 overs for a second straight victory in the championship 50-over match.
He broke Tendulkar’s record of six tonnes in World Cups with his century off 63 balls, which caused the nearly full audience to stand.
“Special to get a World Cup 100. Very happy about that. Don’t want to think about records too much because I know there’s a long way to go,” Rohit said after being named man of the match.
“I know it’s my responsibility to give the team a good start and put the team in a good position as much as possible. It’s something I’ve done for a while and love.”
In addition, Rohit’s century was the quickest by an Indian in a World Cup, surpassing Kapil Dev’s century against Zimbabwe in 1983, which came off just 72 balls.
As Rohit passed Chris Gayle’s record of 553 sixes across all international formats and reached 1,000 World Cup runs, he hit the ball to every part of the ground.
Before being dismissed by leg-spinner Rashid Khan, the brash opener had hit 84 balls and hit 16 fours and five sixes during his innings.
After a strong bowling performance on a batting-friendly pitch, his opening partnership of 156 runs with the left-handed Ishan Kishan, who scored 47, increased the team’s dominance.
Virat Kohli, a cricketing superstar who was born in Delhi, quickly took control and batted an unbeaten 55 before finishing the game with a boundary.
At the other end, Kohli had Shreyas Iyer for company. Iyer made 25 runs without being out and hit the biggest six of 101 metres in the tournament so far.
The team has players, according to Rohit, “who can play fearless cricket”.
After deciding to bat, Afghanistan scored 272-8 on a pitch where South Africa scored 428 runs to defeat Sri Lanka, setting a World Cup record of 754 runs.
Jasprit Bumrah, the home team’s leader in pace, stood out with his best World Cup bowling figures of 4-39.
A 121 run partnership between Hashmatullah Shahidi (80) and Azmatullah Omarzai (62) helped Afghanistan recover after falling to 63-3.
Ibrahim Zadran was caught behind for 22 by Bumrah, who then pointed to his temple in jubilation.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz, who was on 21, and Rahmat Shah, who was on 16, both lost their wickets in the space of four balls, thanks to Hardik Pandya and Shardul Thakur.
Following a century stand between left-handed batsmen Shahidi and Omarzai, Rohit decided to switch up his bowling lineup.
After Omarzai reached his second ODI fifty, Shahidi promptly hit Pandya for four to reach his half-century and then added a six.
Omarzai, who scored 69 runs off 69 balls and hit two fours and four sixes, also tried to attack but was dismissed by Pandya.
Regular boundaries were used by Shahidi to continue the attack, but he was LBW by Kuldeep Yadav when he attempted to reverse sweep the left-arm wrist spinner.
On a run-filled wicket, Bumrah scored twice, including a strike for Rashid, to keep Afghanistan at bay.
“We have seven more games, looking forward to those games,” said Shahidi. “Hopefully we learn from our mistakes and we will work on it.”
Afghans were defeated by Bangladesh in their tournament opener, while tournament favourites India beat five-time champions Australia.
