Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar praised Rohit Sharma after the experienced opener hit a captain’s knock to help team India beat defending champions England by 100 runs at the Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow on Sunday. Despite missing out on a 32nd century, Indian skipper Rohit’s 54th One Day International (ODI) half-century helped his side to secure a comfortable win over Jos Buttler-led side. Rohit hammered 10 fours and three sixes in his classical knock of 87 off 101 balls.

Manjrekar feels that India skipper Rohit Sharma led the hosts to a memorable victory with one of the best innings in ODI history. When we talk about Rohit Sharma’s ODI batting and his greatness, we talk about the three double hundreds, and he scored a quick hundred recently as well. But according to me, this knock is one of the greatest ODI innings, Manjrekar admitted.

There are two or three reasons that the pitch was slightly tricky in the afternoon, the bowling challenge was quite good, the tactics Buttler used were also high quality, and India was under pressure, the ex-cricketer added while speaking to star sports.

You might remember a shot he played, I think off Adil Rashid’s bowling, it was an extremely small gap, and he hit a drive with power to find the boundary. Then he hit Moeen Ali over mid-off against the turn. This artistry sets Rohit apart. It’s not only Rohit, six or seven Indian players are at their peak. We talk about the generation gap but nowadays there is a huge gap between India’s cricket and the other teams’ cricket, Manjrekar concluded.