The opener had missed MI’s previous outing against LSG after being hit on the knee in the lead up to the game
S Sudarshanan06-Apr-20250:26
Jayawardene provides an update on Bumrah and Rohit’s availability
Mumbai Indians (MI) opener Rohit Sharma’s participated in Sunday’s net session, in a bid to be fit for their next game, at home against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) on Monday. Rohit had missed MI’s previous game, against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) after being hit on the knee in the lead up to the match.Rohit was among the first batters to walk in for nets on Sunday. He batted for half an hour with MI opener Ryan Rickelton. They faced a strong set of bowlers in the returning Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult, Mitchell Santer and Karn Sharma. He stood cross-legged at the back when Rickelton took strike and hit a few shots. One of those straight hits got a nod in approval from Rohit.While batters in his net and the adjacent net played big shots, Rohit was keen to get bat to ball. He was consciously trying to middle his shots, which were mere pushes off the front and the back foot. He also edged one Bumrah length ball towards where the slips usually stand. He looked at his bat to gather focus and did not react to Bumrah, who had a long follow-through after that. Rohit continued to bat in rotation with Rickelton before walking off and sat behind MI’s nets for most of the training session. He was not in any visible discomfort and is likely to replace Raj Bawa from the previous game, possibly as an Impact Player.Related
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“Ro [Rohit] looks good, he’s going to bat today as well,” MI head coach Mahela Jayawardene said before the nets session on Sunday. “Rohit had an unfortunate impact on his leg while batting so he felt uncomfortable. We were travelling yesterday. He’ll have a hit today and then we will do an assessment on that.”Rohit had played MI’s first three games for scores of only 13, 8 and 0 before missing the away fixture in Lucknow. In his previous game, against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Rohit came in as an Impact Player and scored 13 as MI chased down 117 for an eight-wicket win.”He had a couple of hits, he’s batting well in the nets,” Jayawardene said when asked about Rohit’s form. “If you’re telling me every two innings to look at someone’s performance, it’s a bit unfair. My memory of his last innings was the Champions Trophy winning knock. So we have to give and back the experienced guys, and them coming to the party. We’ve always, as Mumbai, backed the core group to deliver for us so we’re going to do that. It was unfortunate that he got hit in the nets and hopefully he’ll be 100% and that’s how we will continue to back the guys to get the results for us.”Rohit Sharma batted at the Wankhede nets on Sunday evening•Mumbai Indians
‘Tilak will walk in here tomorrow and win the match for us’One of the major talking points from MI’s last game was retiring out Tilak Varma in the chase of 204. When Tilak struggled to 25 off 23 balls and MI needed 24 to win from seven balls, Jayawardene decided to retire him out, although MI went on to lose the game with captain Hardik Pandya and Mitchell Santner in the middle.”The modern age is much more tactical, and we’ll keep changing batting line-ups to match up certain bowling line-ups and all that,” Jayawardene explained on Sunday. “So I don’t see how different that is. As a batsman I’ve had times where you go to bat and struggle to get through and they bowl well to you, it’s a combination of that. And he batted very well for us in the last three games, in tough situations like we’ve lost wickets early and he built those partnerships, and got us to situations that we need to.”So that’s what his role is with that experience that he brings to the game and I still value that. He was trying and he wasn’t able to get going. So I just felt that it was my decision and to throw someone else to get those two hits and Mitch had done that in the last few games, he was in decent form. We needed two hits to get to that 15 or 20 runs in that last over. So it had nothing to do with Tilak and I’m sure he’ll walk in here tomorrow and win the match for us. That’s who Tilak is for us and there’s a lot of value for him.”MI have won only that one game so far against KKR and lost all their away matches. They are currently eighth on the points table. MI will hit the road again after Monday to play Delhi Capitals in Delhi before returning home to host Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK).
