Published: Apr 21, 2025, 01:36 PM (IST)
Edited: Apr 21, 2025, 01:36 PM (IST)
Mumbai Indians (MI) batter Rohit Sharma has drawn quite a lot of criticism in the ongoing IPL season for his aggressive batting approach leading to more misses than hits. However, MI head coach Mahela Jayawardene said the team has backed the former captain to bat at a similar tempo despite its perils.
Rohit played a match-winning knock of 76 runs from 45 deliveries on Sunday against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) to put his batting woes aside in the ongoing IPL season.
“Once he comes off like that, you know that he’s going to change the game and the momentum and that’s going to filter down to the rest of the boys as well, so pretty happy with the approach,” Jayawardene said in the post-match press conference.
“He never changed his approach. The intent was there from day one, even though he was failing, so that was good for us (in the way) that he was trying to play for the team and how he wanted to do it. We just backed him to do that,” Jayawardene added.
Jayawardene said showing situational awareness is imperative and Rohit was able to execute his plans well against CSK.
“He’s been playing at this tempo for a while and that’s something that he understands himself. But at the same time, he will understand the game better in situational awareness as well. Like today, when Ash (Ravichandran Ashwin) came (on to bowl) as well, he (Rohit) took a little bit of time. He knew that he didn’t have to take (on) the long boundary straight away,” Jayawardene said.
“But those are experienced players making those good decisions out there. He’ll still play with that tempo and we’ve encouraged him to do that because he’s a damn good player, we want him to take control of that. He has got a couple of other guys who are going to follow him, who will bat around him as well (to) take that little bit of onus away from certain situations,” Jayawardene added.
