Known for his forthright opinions, former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar has come up with yet another statement that has got him under the firing line of the fans. Manjrekar has said that he had thought Rohit Sharma would give up his Mumbai Indians captaincy, and hand it over to Kieron Pollard, before the start of IPL 2022.
The five-time champions are currently languishing at the bottom of the points table with 4 losses in as many games and are on the verge of an early elimination from the playoff race.
Rohit Sharma with 80 runs in 4 innings at a strike rate of 125, has been struggling in IPL 2022. Sanjay Manjrekar reckoned akin to Virat Kohli stepping down as RCB’s captain at the end of last season, Rohit, too, could have released the captaincy pressure off himself and bat freely.
“I feel Pollard still adds value. [Before the season] I even felt Rohit Sharma might leave captaincy like Virat Kohli, relax a bit, play as a pure batter and hand the responsibility to Pollard who is a brilliant international captain,” Manjrekar told ESPNCricinfo.
Not only this IPL season, but Rohit’s form has also been underwhelming for the past few years. From the 2019 season, Rohit has averaged 27.9 and struck at 127.7. However, his numbers as India’s opener in T20Is since April 2019 – 982 runs at an average of 32.73 and strike rate of 144 – are in contrast to his IPL form.
While in the Indian team there are the likes of Virat Kohli and KL Rahul to anchor the innings, in MI, Rohit Sharma has taken up the mantle to play the anchor role himself. Hence, such dissimilarity in his India and MI numbers.
Commenting on this issue, Sanjay Manjrekar said: “His (Rohit Sharma) record has been like this for the last 3-4 seasons, average less than 30, strike-rate not 150 or 160. When he plays for India his numbers get better… because then he only thinks about himself and less about the team. When playing IPL, he tries to play the anchor role similar to what KL Rahul did with Punjab Kings and Hardik Pandya did in the last match. If he plays freely, we’ll see the Rohit Sharma we see in Indian cricket.”
Mumbai take on Punjab on Wednesday searching for their first victory in IPL 2022.
