Rohit Sharma’s form must be an area of concern for Mumbai Indians in the IPL 2023 season as the five-time IPL champs look to stay alive in the race for playoffs. Their skipper hasn’t fired on all cylinders so far this season, and former Indian coach Ravi Shastri has offered his verdict on Rohit’s captaincy so far this season, as well as his individual performances.
The 36-year-old has only managed to score 184 runs in 10 games so far this season, and he is currently averaging just 18.40 making it pretty clear that Rohit’s form is one of the reasons why Mumbai Indians are currently in sixth place on the IPL 2023 points table.
With just a single half-century to his name this season, Rohit has struggled to live up to his own lofty standards in the league, and he has now most ducks in IPL history upon his name.
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During Mumbai Indians’ recent defeat to Chennai Super Kings, the ‘Hitman’ could only muster up a three-ball duck, thus creating the unwanted record of most ducks.
Talking about Rohit’s struggles so far in IPL 2023 season, Shastri revealed that when a captain is not scoring runs freely his job becomes even more tougher because they tend to struggle for their own individual form as well as that of the team too.
“As a captain, more important is that your performances come into play. If you start getting on a purple patch where you are scoring runs, the job as a captain becomes much easier. The body language on the field changes, that energy on the field is different. It’s totally different. As opposed to when you not getting runs, you can go flat – no matter who you are," Shastri told ESPNcricinfo.
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Shastri further insisted that Rohit’s job as a captain has been a tad more difficult than it was in the past seasons because they no longer have the same squad, the likes of Kieron Pollard, and Hardik Pandya are all now long gone and that has added more burden on the skipper.
“Plus, the resources you had 2-3 years ago, aren’t quite the same, then comes the challenge, how do you get going? How do you motivate that bunch? How do you create a combination? How do you see who is the best in that lot to fit in and deliver at a certain stage of the game?" stated the legendary all-rounder.
He added further, “So the challenges as a captain might have doubled for him. The work as a captain would have doubled as opposed to two years ago. Where everything was nice, go out there and do the job. Having said that, you still have to captain a side. Which you did brilliantly. It’s harder."
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Mumbai Indians are set to lock horns with Royal Challengers Bangalore next, and Faf du Plessis’ side sit just above MI in the points table so it will be a big game for both teams to cement their playoff hopes.
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