Gautam Gambhir has sparked a new row by saying that the current India skipper Rohit Sharma is a better player than Australia's two-time World Cup-winning captain Ricky Ponting. Speaking ahead of the 2nd ODI between India and Sri Lanka, Gambhir said that Rohit is a better player than Ponting because the latter has got forgettable batting stats in Asia.
Gambhir made the comments in presence of former India international Sanjay Manjrekar, who looked visibly shocked by what the cricketer-turned-politician said about a decorated player like Ponting. Manjrekar was particularly appalled with the kind of word Gambhir used to describe Ponting's record in the sub-continent. Ponting has won two ICC Cricket World Cups for Australia and is regarded as one of the best batsmen to play the game. Ponting is currently third on the list of highest run-scorers in ODIs. Rohit Sharma has improved his ODI game significantly in the past five-six years, scoring a record-shattering 21 centuries since 2016. Five of those centuries came in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 alone, which is still the record for the most centuries by a player in a single edition of a World Cup. Rohit has scored a total of 29 centuries in the format and is just one hundred away from equalling Ponting's record of 30 ODI tons.
