Rohit Sharma used teammate Shardul Thakur’s gifted bat to score 138 at Lord’s

Rohit Sharma scored 138 at Lord’s in the final match of India’s ODI series in England earlier this year, using a bat gifted to him by teammate Shardul Thakur.

The India opener admitted the first two games of the series did not go as per his standards, managing scores of just 11 and 26 in those fixtures. The final game of the series brought Rohit to Lord’s with pressure to perform after those low scores, and he discussed the episode on his show Family Full House with Rohit Sharma.

Rohit produced a brilliant 138 in that Lord’s match, an innings that helped India finish the series on a high. It was his first hundred at Lord’s and came after the 11 and 26 he scored in the opening games of the series.

Rohit revealed the bat he used had been given to him by Shardul before the match. “Last ODI series jo humne kheli thi, jiss se mere kuch run bane the last ODI mein. Woh bat mujhe Shardul ne diya tha” (The last ODI series we played, with which I scored some runs in the last ODI. That bat was given to me by Shardul), Rohit said on his show.

He explained the simple reason Shardul had a bat to spare: as a bowler Shardul often receives bats, and Rohit joked that he continues to get them, sometimes even better ones than the batter himself. What began as a casual gift from one teammate to another became part of Rohit’s innings at the Home of Cricket.

For Shardul, it was a bat he had received and passed on to a close friend; for Rohit, it became the bat he took to Lord’s and used to produce a memorable 138 after a difficult start to the series, an innings that placed his name on the Honour's board.