Rohit Sharma goes past Viv Richards on record-breaking day in Perth

Rohit Sharma couldn't have asked for a better beginning to 2016 - an Indian win will only make it sweeter. After all a team doesn't lose often when one of its openers carries his bat through to score 171 not out.

Rohit, who is making a habit of registering his name into record books, is the only batsman to score two double hundreds in ODIs and had India had a couple of overs more at its disposal, he might have completed a hat-trick nobody envisaged at the dawn of the 21st century.

Coming onto the tour with poor form and several question marks hanging over his head as swords, Rohit answered his detractors the way any cricketer should. His 171* off 163 balls has set India up for a winning start to the New Year.

Studded with 13 fours and 7 sixes, Rohit would surely not have known that his knock would take him past one of the greats of world cricket, Sir Vivian Richards, as the highest ODI score by a visiting batsman in Australia versus Australia.

But that was only one of the many records his bat broke at the WACA on Tuesday. Take a quick look:

1. Highest ODI score by a visiting batsman in Australia vs Australia, going past Richards' 153* in 1979.

2. Highest unbeaten ODI score in Australia, going past AB de Villiers' 162*.

3. Highest ODI score by an Indian in Australia, going past Sourav Ganguly's 141.

4. Rohit joins Sachin Tendulkar to become the batsman with most 170+ scores in ODIs. Both have done it thrice.

5. First Indian to score an ODI century in Perth.

6. Fifth highest ODI score in Australia.

7. After 2008, there have been only two ODI centuries by an Indian against Australia in Australia. Both have been scored by Rohit.

8. Rohit joins VVS Laxman to score second-most ODI centuries against Australia. Both have 4, behind Tendulkar's 9.

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