Rohit Gurunath Sharma (born 30 April 1987) is an Indian international cricketer and the former captain of the India national cricket team in all formats of the game. He is a right-handed top-order batter. He represents Mumbai in domestic cricket and Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League. Sharma was a member of the teams that won the 2007 T20 World Cup, the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy and was the winning captain of the 2024 T20 World Cup and the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy. Sharma is widely regarded as a modern-day great, known for his leadership and explosive batting.
Sharma holds several batting records which include most sixes in international cricket, most double centuries in ODI cricket (three), most centuries at Cricket World Cups (seven) and joint most centuries in Twenty20 Internationals (five). He also holds the world record for the highest individual score (264) in a One Day International (ODI) and also holds the record for scoring most centuries (five) in a single Cricket World Cup, for which he won the ICC Men's ODI Cricketer of the Year award in 2019. He is the first and only captain to lead a team in all ICC tournament finals.
He formerly captained Mumbai Indians and the team has won five Indian Premier League titles in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020 under him, making him the most successful captain in IPL history, sharing this record with MS Dhoni. He is also one of two players who have played in every edition of the T20 World Cup, from the inaugural edition in 2007 till 2024. He is the only Indian player to win two T20 World Cups. He became the second Indian captain to win a T20 World Cup.
He has received three national honours, the Arjuna Award in 2015, the prestigious Khel Ratna Award in 2020 by the Government of India, and the Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian award, in 2026, for his immense, long standing contribution to Indian cricket, which notably includes leading India to victory in the 2024 T20 World Cup and the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy. Under his captaincy, India also won the 2018 Asia Cup and the 2023 Asia Cup, the seventh and eighth time the country won the title, both in ODI format as well as the 2018 Nidahas Trophy, their second overall and first in T20I format.
Sharma was born on 30 April 1987 into a Marathi-Telugu family in Bansod, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India. His mother, Purnima Sharma, is from Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. His father, Gurunath Sharma, worked as a caretaker of a transport firm storehouse. Sharma was raised by his grandparents and uncles in Borivali because of his father's low income. He would visit his parents, who lived in a single-room house in Dombivli, only during weekends. He has a younger brother, Vishal Sharma.
Sharma joined a cricket camp in 1999 with his uncle's money. Dinesh Lad, his coach at the camp, asked him to change his school to Swami Vivekanand International School, where Lad was the coach and the cricket facilities were better than those at Sharma's old school. Sharma recollects, "I told him I couldn't afford it, but he got me a scholarship. So for four years I didn't pay a penny, and did well in my cricket". Sharma started as an off-spinner who could bat a bit before Lad noticed his batting ability and promoted him from number eight to open the innings. He excelled in the Harris and Giles Shield school cricket tournaments, scoring a century on debut as an opener.
Sharma made his List A debut for West Zone against Central Zone in the Deodhar Trophy at Gwalior in March 2005. Batting at number eight, he scored 31 not out as West Zone won by 3 wickets with 24 balls remaining. Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravindra Jadeja made their debuts in the same match. It was Sharma's unbeaten innings of 142 in 123 balls against North Zone at the Maharanna Bhupal College Ground in Udaipur in the same tournament that brought him into the limelight. He visited Abu Dhabi and Australia with the India A squad and was then included among India's 30-member probable's list for the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy tournament, although he did not make the final squad.
Sharma made his first-class debut for India A against New Zealand A at Darwin in July 2006. He scored 57 and 22 as India won by 3 wickets. He made his Ranji Trophy debut for Mumbai in the 2006–07 season and scored 205 off 267 balls against Gujarat. Mumbai went on to win the tournament with Sharma scoring a half-century (57) in his second innings in the final against Bengal.
Sharma has spent his entire domestic first-class career at Mumbai. In December 2009, he made his highest career score of 309 not out in the Ranji Trophy against Gujarat. In October 2013, upon the retirement of Ajit Agarkar, he was appointed team captain ahead of the 2013–14 season.
In November 2013, during Sachin Tendulkar's farewell series, Sharma made his Test debut at Eden Gardens in Kolkata against West Indies and scored 177, the second-highest individual score on debut by an Indian to Shikhar Dhawan (187). He followed it up with 111 (not out) in the second Test at his home ground, the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
Having been out of the Test team since 2017–18, Sharma went on the 2018–19 tour of Australia after he had earned a recall earlier. Chief selector M. S. K. Prasad said the reason for his recall was that his natural game suited the bouncy Australian pitches. Sharma played in the first Test in Adelaide, scoring 37 and 1 in an Indian victory. During the first Test, he sustained a minor injury which saw him miss the second Test in Perth. He recovered for the Boxing Day third Test at Melbourne and scored 63 (not out) to help India total 443/7 and win both the Test and the series. After the third Test, Sharma had to return to India for the birth of his daughter.
In October 2019, in the third Test against South Africa, Sharma scored his 2,000th run and his first double century in Tests. He made 212 in the first innings of the match. Sharma was named as vice-captain of India's Test team during the tour of Australia in 2020, replacing Cheteshwar Pujara.
He had a successful home series against England in 2021. Instrumental in his team's comeback after a defeat in the first Test at Chennai, he scored a century, one that The Guardian termed "deserves to be considered one of the greatest this century." He put on 167 runs with Ajinkya Rahane for the fourth wicket while making 161 runs in an innings that included 18 fours and two sixes. India went on to win the Test by 317 runs. He top-scored for his team in both innings of the low-scoring third Test in Ahmedabad with scores of 66 and 25 contributing to his team's win. Sharma finished the series aggregating 345 runs, the most for India, at an average of 58. He went on to score his first overseas Test century on 4 September 2021 with an innings of 127 against England at The Oval, also reaching the milestone of 3,000 runs in Test cricket.
Later, he was appointed as the captain of India's Test team in February 2022, succeeding Virat Kohli, ahead of a two-match series against Sri Lanka. Sunil Gavaskar praised his leadership and Chetan Sharma, India's chairman of selectors, said: "We will groom future captains under him".
He had a poor run of form with the bat in the 2024–25 season. His captaincy also came under criticism following the 0–3 home series defeat to New Zealand, India's first Test series loss at home in 12 years, and the 1–3 away loss to Australia that followed. In his eight final Tests, he managed to score just one half-century and averaged 10.93. On 7 May 2025, ahead of India's England tour, he announced his retirement from Test cricket. He finished his Test career having played 67 Tests and making 4,301 runs at 40.57. In the 24 Tests he captained, India won 12, losing nine and drawing 3.
2015, 2019 and 2023 Cricket World Cups
In March 2015, Sharma made his first appearance in the Cricket World Cup and played in eight matches for India in the 2015 tournament in Australia. India reached the semi-final stage where they were defeated by Australia. Sharma scored 330 runs in the tournament with one century, a score of 137 in the quarter-final against Bangladesh.