Rohit Gurunath Sharma (born 30 April 1987) is an Indian cricketer. He is a right-handed batsman and an occasional right-arm off break bowler who plays for Mumbai in domestic cricket. He is the captain of the Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League.Having started his international career at the age of 20, Sharma quickly came to be pegged by many analysts as a permanent fixture in the Indian cricket team in the next decade. In 2013, he started playing as an opening batsman for India ODI team, and performed consistently. He scored consecutive centuries in his first two Test matches against the West Indies in November 2013, scoring 177 at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on debut, followed by a score of 111* in the next Test at the Wankhede Stadium in India.[1][2] He played 108 ODIs before playing his maiden Test.
On 13 November 2014, Rohit Sharma scored 264 against Sri Lanka at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, which is the highest individual score in ODIs. He thus became the only player in the world to score two double hundreds in ODIs. Rohit Sharma is the third skipper after MS Dhoni and Gautam Gambhir to lead his team to the IPL title twice. As per Forbes India 2015 Top 100 celebrities in India, Sharma is listed 8th in terms of fame, 46th in terms of income and 12th overall.[3]
Early life
Sharma was born on 30 April 1987 in Bansod, Nagpur, Maharashtra. He speaks Telugu, as his mother Purnima Sharma comes from Visakhapatnam.[4] His father Gurunath Sharma worked as a caretaker of a transport firm storehouse. Sharma was raised by his grandparents and uncles in Borivali because of his father's low income.[5] He would visit his parents, who lived in a single-room house in Dombivli,[6] only during weekends.[5] He has a younger brother, Vishal Sharma.[6]Sharma joined a cricket camp in 1999 with his uncle's money. His coach at the camp was Dinesh Lad who asked him to change his school to Swami Vivekanand International School, where Lad was the coach and which had better cricket facilities. Sharma recollects, "I told him I couldn't afford it, but he got me a scholarship. So for four years I didn't pay a penny, and did well in my cricket."[5] Sharma started as an off spinner who could bat a bit, before Lad noticed Sharma's batting abilities and promoted him from number eight to open the innings. He excelled in the Harris and Giles Shield school cricket tournaments, scoring a century on debut as opener.[7]
