India captain Rohit Sharma on Thursday set a new world record as he surpassed New Zealand’s Martin Guptill to become the leading run-scorer in T20I cricket. Rohit also overtook his former captain Virat Kohli to move from the 3rd spot to bag the numero uno position in the batting chart in the shortest format of the game.

Rohit Sharma needed 37 runs ahead of the first T20I against Sri Lanka and he achieved the milestone as early as the series opener at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekanta Stadium on Friday.

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Rohit went past Martin Guptill’s tally of 3299 runs and Kohli’s tally of 3296 runs with a strong start in the first T20I against the visiting Sri Lankan side. Rohit is also eyeing another major milestone as he is just 2 more matches from breaking Shoaib Malik’s record as the most-capped T20I player in the history of the format.

Rohit has 3301 runs in 123 matches at an average of over 32. He has 4 hundred in the format, the most by an Indian in T20Is. Virat Kohli had an opportunity to go past Guptill during the recently-concluded 3-match T20I series against the West Indies. Despite hitting a fifty in the 2nd T20I, Kohli fell 4 runs short of the world record.

Kohli was rested for the 3rd T20I against the West Indies and for the entirety of the ongoing series against Sri Lanka. Rohit Sharma had a middling series against the West Indies, managing just 66 runs in 3 T20Is.

In fact, he sacrificed his position in the top-order in the series finale to accommodate Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ishan Kishan. With Rutuaj suffering a wrist injury, Rohit was back at the top for India in the 1st T20I against Sri Lanka.

Rohit has made a conscious effort to play more aggressively at the top of the order since the T20 World Cup in 2021. He scored at a breathtaking pace against New Zealand at home last year, scoring 159 runs at a strike rate of over 150.