How Rohit Sharma beat Shahid Afridi to become the king of sixes

To set the world record of 352 sixes, Rohit Sharma played the shot that perhaps will always be associated with him: an elegant pull that took the ball over the fence between deep square leg and deep fine leg.

- BY S VENKAT NARAYAN

Rohit Sharma

With that shot he became the highest six-hitter ever in the One Day International format, taking him ahead of Pakistan's Shahid Afridi.

More remarkably, he beat the Pakistani's record by nearly a 100 innings.

Rohit Sharma started as a middle order batsman in ODIs and his six-hitting was quite limited at the start of his career. He started to open the innings in November 2013, and has been prolific six hitting then, notching up maximums in double digits every year - including a record 67 sixes in the 2023 calendar year.

There's a reason Rohit Sharma's known as 'Hit Man'. He's scored over 11,440 runs (and counting) in the 18 years he has played ODIs and over 50% of those have come from boundaries. Sixes have contributed to 16% of his total runs through his career.