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Rohit Sharma, the elegant assassin, slays another milestone: Becomes 4th Indian to…
Rohit Sharma reaches 20,000 international runs in the series decider against South Africa.
Visakhapatnam got a familiar script on Saturday evening - India in a series decider, South Africa on the other side, and Rohit Sharma walking out with a milestone quietly stalking him from the scoreboard. By the time he nudged his 27th run in the chase of 271, the number finally blinked into place: 20,000 international runs to the name of Indian cricket’s most laid-back assassin.
It is a landmark that took him 18 years of grind at the highest level. And fittingly, it came not in a dead rubber but in a pressure chase with a trophy on the line in Vizag.
Where Rohit Sharma now sits in India’s all-time charts
Rohit Sharma becomes just the fourth Indian and the 14th player overall to cross 20,000 international runs. The company is exactly what you’d expect from a batter with his pedigree.
Player | International runs |
| Sachin Tendulkar | 34,357 |
| Virat Kohli | 27,910 |
| Rahul Dravid | 24,064 |
| Rohit Sharma | 20,048 |
For Rohit, the 20,000 are spread across three formats, with nearly 11,500 of them coming in ODIs, where he is India’s third-highest run-getter with 33 hundreds.
In pure volume, he needed 538 innings to get there, scoring those runs at an average of over 42, with 50 centuries and 111 fifty-plus scores in international cricket.
Also Read: India vs South Africa 3rd ODI Live Score: Yashasvi Jaiswal registers maiden ODI century, huge opening stand with Rohit
An 18-year journey
What makes this landmark feel heavier is that it comes in the closing stretch of his career, which has already pivoted twice. Rohit has retired from Tests and T20Is, but remains one of India’s mainstays, and increasingly their nostalgia machine - the batter who reminds you of the 2013 Champions Trophy, the 2019 World Cup run, the 2024 T20 World Cup in and now this late-career avalanche of milestones.
He is also sitting on a different kind of summit: 500-plus international caps, one of only five Indians to do so, and the game’s most prolific six hitter.
In Vizag, though, one of those swaggered out visibly. It was just Rohit and Yashasvi Jaiswal easing into the chase, the series on the line, the senior pro ticking another round number that most players can only dream of. The score will move on, debates around greatness will resurface, but the ledger is now inked permanently: Rohit Sharma, 20,000-plus international runs - and counting.
