A 138 that closed a 52-year gap, a chase that fell 27 runs short, and a declaration from the dressing room that the ODI roadmap still has the captain’s name on it.
Rohit Sharma walked out to bat on Sunday afternoon at Lord’s with one of cricket’s quieter statistical curiosities hanging over Indian cricket: in 90 years of ODI cricket, no Indian batter had ever raised his bat for a hundred at the home of cricket. Sachin Tendulkar, across six Tests and three ODIs at the ground, never got there in white-ball cricket. Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly, Virat Kohli – none had turned three figures on that turf in the 50-over format.
By 6.17 pm local time, the wait was over. Rohit punched a short ball from Jamie Overton through the off side to bring up his hundred off 97 balls, raised his bat to a dressing room that included Tendulkar’s longtime teammate Rahul Dravid in the stands, and wrote a line into the record book that had been blank for half a century of Indian one-day cricket.
The number that mattered by stumps, though, was 138. It was the engine of a chase that pushed England to the wire, the second-highest ODI score by an Indian at Lord’s after Kohli’s 129 in the 2014 Test warm-up, and the cornerstone of a 339 for 7 in 48 overs that still ended in a 27-run defeat. England had posted 387 for 6, with Ben Duckett’s 141 turning the match back the home side’s way after the early Rohit show.
The opening stand with Yashasvi Jaiswal produced 89 in 12 overs, but it was the second-wicket partnership with Shubman Gill that turned a chase into a statement. The pair added 152 in 19 overs, with Gill sliding into the gaps square of the wicket and Rohit attacking straight, the arc through long-on and long-off that has been his scoring signature for the best part of a decade.
Rohit hit 15 fours and 5 sixes in his 138, the strike rate of 142.1 nudging slightly above his ODI career mark but well below the high-octane T20 mode that defined his Mumbai Indians captaincy. The tempo, his teammates said afterwards, had been the plan: take the Powerplay to the bowling, consolidate through the middle, and trust the back end if the wickets were in hand.
Indian cricket’s ODI history at Lord’s runs back to 1974, when India first played a 50-over game on the ground. In the half-century since, the closest an Indian had come was 82, by Mohammad Azharuddin in 1990, and 89 by Yuvraj Singh in 2009. Tendulkar’s best at the ground in ODIs was 37. Kohli’s was 16. The surface, with its slope from the Pavilion End and the away movement that the overcast London conditions tend to produce, has historically been a graveyard for visiting top-order batters.
What changed on Sunday was the use of the crease. Rohit’s first 30 runs came almost exclusively square of the wicket, with the cut and the late dab doing the early work. From the 15th over onwards he shifted to the arc between mid-off and mid-on, taking the risk on the up rather than the risk of the late movement. It was a risk-on, risk-managed innings that his opening partner Jaiswal described afterwards as “old-school Rohit — the version we saw in the 2019 World Cup, not the 2024 T20 version.”
India needed 89 from the last 10 overs with seven wickets in hand and both set batters in. The asking rate of 8.9 looked manageable on a surface where 387 had already been chased to within 48 runs of the total, but England’s death bowling tightened in a way the Indian middle order could not match. Adil Rashid, used sparingly through the middle overs, came back in the 41st over and conceded just 28 in his last four. Brydon Carse, replacing the injured Chris Woakes, hit a hard length and varied his pace enough to keep the Indian lower order honest.
Rohit fell in the 43rd over, top-edging a Carse bouncer to fine leg for 138. India were 288 for 4 with 46 balls left. KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant added 31 in 4.1 overs before Pant holed out at long-off, and the chase ran out of batting rather than ideas. The lower order took it as far as 339 for 7, but the target had climbed past realistic reach six balls into the 45th over.
England’s 387 for 6 had been Duckett’s show after another rapid start from Phil Salt. Duckett, who had made 78 in the series opener at Chester-le-Street and 54 at Southampton, timed the chase-inhibiting ball with rare purity through the leg side. His 141 came off 122 balls with 16 fours and 3 sixes, and it was the third ODI hundred of his career — the first two coming against Australia in 2024.
Rohit’s post-match press conference lasted just under four minutes, the shortest of the series. Asked about the retirement question that has followed him since the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in March, he said only: “I’ll keep going as long as the body lets me. Today showed there’s still cricket left in these legs.” Vice-captain Shubman Gill, speaking to the broadcaster a few minutes later, was more direct. “Rohit bhai hasn’t told us anything about retirement,” Gill said. “As long as he wants to play, this team wants him in the side.”
Head coach Gautam Gambhir, in a separate media interaction, was asked whether the ODI roadmap now had Rohit’s name on it through the 2027 World Cup. “We don’t name dates,” he said. “We name performances. The performance tonight speaks for itself.”
India have now played 28 ODIs at Lord’s since 1974. Before Sunday, the highest score by an Indian at the ground was 129 by Kohli in a 2014 warm-up fixture that was not an official ODI. The first official ODI hundred by an Indian at the venue is now Rohit’s 138 on 19 July 2026. Tendulkar, whose absence from the list is often cited as the most surprising number in Indian batting history, will not add to his Lord’s ledger — he has not played an ODI since 2012.
The series result, with England taking it 2-1 after wins at Chester-le-Street and Southampton, narrows the World Cup Super League points India had banked on the tour. India remain in the top three of the ODI rankings, but the away series defeat is the first in an ODI rubber since the 2023 tour of Bangladesh. The next assignment is a three-match home series against New Zealand in October, which is also the next chance for Indian batters to add to their own Lord’s-style lists in less storied venues.
The T20I leg of the tour begins at Old Trafford on Wednesday, with India expected to rest several of the ODI players. Rohit’s inclusion in that squad has not yet been confirmed; if he is rested, his next appearance will be the first ODI against New Zealand in Mumbai on 11 October. Tendulkar’s absence from the Lord’s century-makers’ board, after 50 years of Indian ODI cricket at the ground, is the kind of record that usually invites a follow-up question in any Indian press conference. The next one will be at the pre-series media day in Mumbai.
For more on the ODI series and what the England defeat means for India’s World Cup planning, follow the rest of our cricket news and analysis coverage through the rest of the tour and into the New Zealand home series later this year.
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