A few days earlier prior to his batting masterclass at Lord’s on a dreamy Sunday on July 19, Rohit Sharma was supposedly retiring from the very format in which he came to dominate the hosts and that too, at the famous hub of the sport called Cricket’s home. Beating the pile of rumours and mere hearsay, one of India’s high ranking achievers in the one day white ball format played an extraordinary innings laced with class and sheer power to strike 138 runs.

And most importantly it took the great man, a former captain of the Indian side, just 110 odd deliveries to carve what became his maiden ton at the venue.

But this really was no lame feat; on the contrary, it was anything but. Even as the Mumbai born highly adored cricketer’s effort wasn’t enough to get the side over the line, at the back of Rohit’s brilliant Lord’s hundred, India found a first player from its ranks to have his name on the honours board for hitting a ton in the 50-overs limited overs format.

And while sadly, Team India came close but not close enough, in the evenly contested game’s aftermath, Rohit Sharma opened up on his batting effort. Speaking to BCCI TV, he would exclaim-

“A little disappointed with the result because we were playing good cricket. How we started at Birmingham, we played good cricket. We were a little short at Cardiff with the bat. And then here again, it was a massive total to chase. We tried everything we could with the bat. But again fell 20-25 runs short with the bat. When it comes to bowling, you need to understand these guys haven’t played a lot of ODI cricket. You gotta give them some time. But I hope we can learn from this game, take it into our stride and make sure when we come across a situation like that, we try and better ourselves.”

He also opened up on the experience of playing in England where thanks to his most recent ton, he registered his eighth century in the nation, the most by any visiting batter. He would add, “I love playing in England, there’s no doubt about this. The atmosphere, the ground, the pitches.. when you turn up here to play in any sort of format, it challenges you in different ways. And that’s what as a cricketer you want. You want to be challenged every time. I had my time in the middle. I enjoyed it. But again like I said, a little disappointed with the result!”