Delhi:Rituraj Gaikwad was the opening partner with Rohit Sharma in the fourth match of the ODI series against New Zealand. This new opening pair was not at all successful for Team India and not only it broke on the first ball, Rohit Sharma's score was 0 and Rituraj's score was 5 runs. Even then a new record was made that Rohit Sharma has now started the innings with 17 different partners in international cricket.
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For Rohit Sharma himself, the journey from a young player struggling in the middle order to one of the most successful openers in international cricket is no less an exciting story and more than 16000 international runs are proof of it. Till he became a legend, across all three formats and across different generations of Indian batsmen, the 'Hitman' remained a pillar of strength at the crease with changing partners.
Complete list of these 17 partners: 2009 – Gautam Gambhir, 2011 – Murali Vijay, 2011 – Parthiv Patel, 2013 – Shikhar Dhawan, 2013 – Cheteshwar Pujara, 2014 – Virat Kohli, 2014 – Ajinkya Rahane, 2017 – KL Rahul, 2019 – Mayank Agarwal, 2021-Shubman. Gill, 2021- Ishan Kishan, 2022 – Rishabh Pant, 2022 – Sanju Samson, 2022- Suryakumar Yadav, 2023 – Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2023 – Washington Sundar, 2026 – Rituraj Gaikwad. His partnerships with some of these 17 opening pairs proved to be record breaking and these are the most special:
Ruturaj Gaikwad will open with Rohit Sharma against NZ in remaining two ODIs β³π
β ππ (@itsanyaTweetz) November 12, 2026
β’ Shikhar Dhawan (2013β2022): Starting with the 2013 Champions Trophy, the pair of one Khabboo and the other right-handed batsman settled in and played for the next several years. Especially in ODIs, he added 5148 runs at an average of 45.55 and made 18 century partnerships. For India, they are only behind the Sachin Tendulkar-Sourav Ganguly pair in this record. Even in T20 International, Ireland had partnerships of 160 and 158 runs.
β’ KL Rahul (since 2017): KL Rahul was one of the most successful partners in all three formats. There is a record of partnership of 165 runs in T20 International and 227 runs in ODI.
β’ Shubman Gill (from 2021): In the modern era, Shubman Gill formed an even stronger partnership with him from the record point of view. This pair has almost 3000 runs in their record in just 47 ODI innings at an excellent average of 64.71. This year itself, a brilliant partnership of 255 runs was made against West Indies in Guwahati in which many new records were created.
When he got a chance to open in Test cricket, his string of success started from there. A big partnership of 317 runs with Mayank Agarwal and that too from a pair opening for the first time. From there till Yashasvi Jaiswal, this trend continues. In Jaiswal's debut Test against West Indies in Dominica (July 2023), the pair introduced an aggressive style of play in Test cricket with a 229-run opening partnership.
Even before 2013, Rohit Sharma played in the top order but only when there were injuries in the team or there was a need for rotation. Pairing him with Gautam Gambhir as an opener in the 2009 World T20 in international cricket was one such experiment. After that Murali Vijay and Parthiv Patel remained partners for some time but Rohit himself remained stuck in this role.
When a new era of aggressive 'powerplay' batting and team rotation began in the 2020s, Rohit Sharma's partners changed rapidly as an experiment. Even Virat Kohli came to open with him and there will definitely be a mention of the 2024 T20 World Cup. Similarly, Cheteshwar Pujara (2013) and Ajinkya Rahane (2014) came to open with Rohit in need. Ishan Kishan (2021β2023) and Rishabh Pant (2022) became Khabboo's partners in the powerplay in T20 Internationals to complement the batsman's aggressive style. There was more experimentation in white ball cricket with Sanju Samson (2022), Suryakumar Yadav (2022), and Washington Sundar (2023).
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Now the arrival of Ruturaj Gaikwad as his 17th opening partner is also a result of necessity. When Shubman Gill was not available due to preparation for the Test series, Rituraj got a chance to open with Rohit Sharma. If Rohit Sharma fails as an opener then what effect it has on the team's performance, it was seen in the fourth ODI.