Rohit Sharma vs Virender Sehwag Stats: Test, ODI, T20I & IPL

For four years the world record for the highest individual score in a One-Day International was held by three Indians in succession. Sachin Tendulkar made the first double-century at Gwalior in February 2010; Virender Sehwag took the record to 219 against the West Indies at Indore in December 2011; Rohit Sharma passed him with 209 in 2013 and then made 264 at Eden Gardens in November 2014, where it has stayed. Two of those three names are the subject of this page.

That shared thread is where the comparison is closest, and outside it the two records diverge sharply. Sehwag's greatest work was in Test cricket — 8,586 runs at 49.34 as an opener, with 23 hundreds, two triple-centuries and a strike rate above 80 that nobody in the format's history has matched over that volume. Rohit's Test career was a long struggle followed by a late reinvention and finished at 4,301 runs at 40.57. Reverse the format and reverse the verdict: Rohit made 11,895 ODI runs at 48.95 with 34 hundreds to Sehwag's 8,273 at 35.05 with 15.

And in T20 international cricket there is barely a comparison. Sehwag played 19 matches at the very end of his career; Rohit played 159 and finished as the format's leading run-scorer.

The records

Format	Sehwag	Rohit
Tests	104 matches, 8,586 runs at 49.34, 23 hundreds, HS 319	67 matches, 4,301 runs at 40.57, 12 hundreds, HS 212
ODIs	251 matches, 8,273 runs at 35.05, 15 hundreds, HS 219	288 matches, 11,895 runs at 48.95, 34 hundreds, HS 264
T20Is	19 matches, 394 runs, no hundred	159 matches, 4,231 runs at 32.05, 5 hundreds
ODI strike rate	104.33	Around 92
Bowling	40 Test wickets, 96 ODI wickets	Occasional off-spin, no significant record
IPL	104 matches, past 2,700 runs at a strike rate above 150	7,329 runs, six winner's medals
First-class	194 matches, 14,683 runs at 47.36	129 matches, 9,318 runs at 49.04, HS 309 not out

Sehwag's figures are final. Rohit's Test and T20I rows are closed and his ODI row was still open in 2026.

Tests: the most unusual opening record in the game

Sehwag's Test career is the outlier here and probably in the whole history of opening batting. He averaged 49.34 while scoring at more than 80 runs per hundred balls — a combination of volume and speed that no other opener has produced over a hundred Tests. He made 23 hundreds, six of them scores above 200, and two above 300.

The two triples are what he is remembered for. Three hundred and nine against Pakistan at Multan in 2004 made him the first Indian to reach 300 in a Test. Three hundred and nineteen against South Africa at Chennai in 2008 was made at close to a run a ball, reaching 300 in 278 balls — the fastest triple-century in Test history. He also made 293 against Sri Lanka at Mumbai in 2009, falling seven short of a third, having tried to reach it with a six.

Rohit's Test record has none of that and one genuine achievement inside it. He made 177 on debut at Eden Gardens in 2013, then failed for six years in the middle order and was dropped repeatedly, averaging in the low thirties. Moved to open in 2019, he became a good Test opener — the position suited a player who wanted to hit the new ball rather than block it — and most of his twelve hundreds and his 212 came afterwards. The away record never matched the home one, and his last two years in the format were poor enough that he retired in May 2025.

Where India's openers rank against each other over the decades is set out in the page on India's great opening batters.

ODIs: Rohit, on everything except the rate

Nearly 14 runs an innings and 19 hundreds separate them. Rohit's 48.95 with 34 hundreds is one of the best ODI records anybody has, and Sehwag's 35.05 is the record of a batter who was trying to do something else.

That something else was the powerplay. Sehwag opened with a strike rate of 104.33 in an era when the ODI norm for an opener was in the seventies and eighties, and his method — stand still, hit the ball, accept the dismissals — produced a shape of innings that averaged 35 and won matches at a rate the average does not reflect. The 219 at Indore came off 149 balls with 25 fours and seven sixes.

Rohit reached the same destination by a slower route. His strike rate is around 92, well below Sehwag's, and his conversion is far better: 34 hundreds from 288 matches against 15 from 251. He is the only batter with three ODI double-hundreds, and at the 2019 World Cup he made five hundreds in a single tournament, which nobody else has done. Sehwag's World Cup contribution was the 175 against Bangladesh that opened India's 2011 campaign, a tournament India won.

Both men had to be moved

The neatest structural parallel between them is that each became what he was because a captain moved him up the order.

Sehwag was a middle-order batter who could not hold a place until Sourav Ganguly opened with him in Tests in 2002. He made 84 on his first attempt at Lord's and never batted anywhere else. Rohit was a middle-order ODI batter for six years, in and out of the side, before being pushed to open at the start of the 2013 Champions Trophy season, after which his ODI average rose by more than ten runs.

Both moves were made because the side had a vacancy rather than because anybody predicted the outcome, and both are worth remembering whenever a young batter is said to be in the wrong role. The wider history of India's ODI cricket covers the period in which both changes happened.

T20 and the IPL

Sehwag's international T20 career is small — 19 matches and 394 runs, played mostly in his mid-thirties. Rohit's is one of the largest there has been: 159 matches, 4,231 runs, five hundreds and the captaincy of the side that won the 2024 T20 World Cup in Barbados.

In the IPL the gap is smaller than the international one but still clear. Sehwag played 104 matches for Delhi Daredevils and Kings XI Punjab, made past 2,700 runs at a strike rate above 150, and captained both franchises without winning a title; his 122 in the 2014 qualifier for Punjab is among the great innings of the competition. Rohit has 7,329 runs, the second-highest total in IPL history, and six winner's medals — one with Deccan Chargers in 2008 and five as Mumbai Indians captain.

Bowling, and the columns that only one has

Sehwag bowled useful off-spin and took 40 Test wickets and 96 in ODIs, which is not a serious all-round record and is 130-odd more international wickets than Rohit managed. In first-class cricket Rohit has the higher figure that matters most: 309 not out, made for Mumbai, is a larger score than anything in Sehwag's domestic record even though Sehwag has the two Test triples.

Rohit's counterpart column is the captaincy. Two global titles — the 2024 T20 World Cup and the 2025 Champions Trophy — plus five IPL titles, against Sehwag, who captained India briefly and won nothing at any level.

The verdict

• Test runs, average, hundreds and highest score: Sehwag, comfortably.
• Test strike rate for an opener: Sehwag, and it is unmatched in the format.
• ODI runs, average, hundreds and double-centuries: Rohit.
• ODI strike rate: Sehwag, by a wide margin.
• Highest ODI score: Rohit's 264, which passed Sehwag's 219.
• T20 international cricket: Rohit, on a format Sehwag mostly missed.
• IPL runs and titles: Rohit.
• Bowling: Sehwag.
• Captaincy and trophies: Rohit.

Read as careers rather than as columns, they are close: one of the best Test openers India has produced against one of the best white-ball openers anybody has produced. The individual pages for Virender Sehwag and Rohit Sharma cover each in detail, and the player directory and the cricket in India hub carry the rest.

Sources and method

Sehwag's figures are final and come from ESPNcricinfo career records and the statistical summary on his Wikipedia entry. Rohit's numbers are current to 22 July 2026 internationally and to 31 May 2026 in the IPL. Sehwag's IPL total is given in rounded terms because published figures differ slightly between references.

Strike rates are quoted where a source states them — 104.33 for Sehwag in ODIs — and given approximately where published figures vary. The record claims here (highest ODI score, fastest Test triple-century, only batter with three ODI double-hundreds, most hundreds in a World Cup edition) are as listed by ICC and ESPNcricinfo record pages.

The account of how each man's promotion to opening changed his record is descriptive: the dates and the moves are matters of record, and the effect on their averages is visible in the career splits, but no attempt is made here to calculate what either would have averaged had he stayed in the middle order. Figures current as of 27 August 2026.