Never think of a double century, says MOM Rohit

MUMBAI: Rohit Sharma has plundered runs all over the world in limited-overs format.

However, scoring a big hundred at the Cricket Club of India (CCI) must have felt pretty special considering he played a lot of matches while growing up here.

On Monday, after receiving the Man-of-the-match award for his knock against the West Indies, Rohit didn’t hesitate from publicly professing his love for the CCI and said he was confident of doing well coming here.

“I have played a lot of cricket at the CCI. It’s a very good pitch and you get value for the shots. You don’t need to hit the ball hard here. You just need to place the ball in the gaps.

“That’s what I was trying to do. When you come to a ground where you have played enough cricket, you feel confident going into the match,” he said during the post-match press conference.

The 31-year-old, who registered the second 150-plus score in the series and became only the second batsman after Zimbabwe’s Hamilton Masakadza to do so, revealed how the experience of playing on the ground stood him in a good stead.

“I understand the pitch here and what it does. When spinners are bowling, I know what helps them. I had a lot of opportunity of playing at the CCI and it was about doing what I have always done.”

Rohit, the only batsman to have scored multiple double tons in one-day international cricket, had a chance of slamming his fourth double hundred on Monday but he fell short of the mark by 38 runs. When asked if another double hundred was on his mind, he said he never lets his mind crowd with a thought of a milestone.

“It never came across my mind to score a double ton. I always think of scoring as many as runs as possible. The three double hundreds that I have got, I never thought of getting them. Rayudu was telling me from the other end to try to get to a double hundred.

“But I only wanted to score runs so that we get enough runs because CCI can be tricky in terms of chasing. Thankfully, we bowled well and got them out cheaply,” he said.