India opener Rohit Sharma became the ICC's No.1-ranked ODI batter in the world on Wednesday, for the first time in his career. Why did it take him 18 years to do so?
Rohit Sharma achieves ODI No.1 ranking after 18 years
Rohit is an undisputed great of the 50-over game; 11,370 runs to his name say as much. He also holds the record for the highest individual score in ODIs, and has scored three of the ten double centuries in men's ODIs. Nobody else has more than one.
Rohit made his ODI debut against Ireland in 2007, but did not bat in that game. His first innings in the format was against South Africa at Belfast, where he made eight off nine balls. With 276 matches to his name, he has played ODIs in each calendar year since 2007.
That, of course, makes it surprising that it took him until 2025 to make it to No.1 in the ICC rankings.
How did Rohit not make it to No.1 for 18 years?
Relatively well-known by now is the fact that Rohit's early ODI career was quite stop-start. In fact, the heights he has hit now did not come until he began opening the batting regularly, in 2013.
By the end of 2012, his ODI record was quite modest; in 86 matches, he made 1,978 runs at 30.43 and a strike rate of 78. Hardly the numbers of a great or someone likely to top the ICC rankings. For much of 2008 and 2009, Rohit's ODI ranking hovered around the mark of 80. At the end of 2012, he was 56th in the world.
Read more: Marks out of 10: India's player ratings after their 1-2 ODI series loss vs Australia
Then came 2013, a bumper year for Rohit. Moving to the top of the order, he made 1,196 runs, averaging 52 at a strike rate of 81. That was enough to propel him to 18th in the rankings by the end of the year.
In each of the next seven calendar years that followed, Rohit averaged over 50, thrice averaging over 60. His strike rate was consistently in the high 90s, and went over 100 in 2018.
At the end of 2014, Rohit was 19th in the rankings. By 2015, 13th and by 2016, ninth. Across 2017, 2018 and 2019, he amassed 3,813 runs, averaging nearly 66 and striking at almost 96. How many times, you ask, did he top the rankings? Not once.
Rohit Sharma - ICC ODI batting ranking at the end of each calendar year
| Year | Rank |
| 2007 | Outside top 100 |
| 2008 | 75 |
| 2009 | 99 |
| 2010 | 59 |
| 2011 | 34 |
| 2012 | 56 |
| 2013 | 18 |
| 2014 | 19 |
| 2015 | 13 |
| 2016 | 9 |
| 2017 | 5 |
| 2018 | 2 |
| 2019 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2 |
| 2021 | 3 |
| 2022 | 9 |
| 2023 | 4 |
| 2024 | 2 |
Rohit's biggest hurdle to No.1: Virat Kohli
Quite simply, Rohit was unfortunate (fortunate in another way, of course) that his career, and his peak, overlapped almost entirely with Virat Kohli's. Arguably the greatest one-day batter ever, Kohli had a vice-like grip on the No.1 spot in ODIs. Between July 6, 2016 and March 28, 2021, he did not drop from the top. That is easy to see why; in that period, Kohli made nearly 5,000 runs in 82 innings, averaging a stunning 75.1 while striking at 98.
India played ODIs sporadically between 2020 and 2022; just 14 in three years. Over this period, the Kohli slipped to second and Rohit to third. Babar Azam, on the rise at that point, occupied the top spot.
Rohit's late-career reinvention as a more swashbuckling opener since 2023 has helped him regain ground. At the start of that calendar year, he had a rating of 705, and was ranked ninth. Kohli was eighth, with a rating of 707. The pair were in third and fourth respectively by the end of 2023.
Also read: A 1 in 262,144 chance: India stretch world record ODI toss losing streak to 18 matches
The Indian trio of Rohit, Kohli and Shubman Gill have consistently been in the top five since 2024. So far, Gill's productivity in the format had helped him keep both Rohit and Kohli at bay.
On March 10 this year, after the Champions Trophy final, Gill was first, Rohit third and Kohli fifth. They carried these ranks into the recent ODI series against Australia.
Kohli scored two ducks in a row for the first time in ODIs, and Gill made just 43 runs in his first ODI tour to Australia. Rohit, on the other hand, was the series top-scorer with 202 runs at an average of 101. The combination of Rohit and Gill's respective hauls were enough for him to shoot past his opening partner (and Afghanistan's Ibrahim Zadran), to take the top spot. Kohli, meanwhile, fell from fifth to sixth despite an unbeaten half-century in the final match of the series.
Follow Wisden for all cricket updates, including live scores, match stats, quizzes and more. Stay up to date with the latest cricket news, player updates, team standings, match highlights, video analysis and live match odds.
