Over the past couple of years, the angry side of Rohit Sharma has come up regularly: whether while captaining India or Mumbai Indians, the captain has now shied away from having a furious go at his own players for their mistakes with the ball or in the field.
Senior leg-spinner Piyush Chawla faced the brunt of Rohit Sharma’s anger on Tuesday evening, when playing against Gujarat Titans, at the Narendra Modi stadium, after Chawla made a poor misfielding that resulted in a boundary what should have been nothing more than a single.
Riley Meredith bowled a good yorker to GT batsman Abhinav Manohar who dug it out and sliced it toward short third man and ran off for a quick single. Chawla, positioned at short third man, didn’t bend down properly and failed to collect the ball. The ball went past Chawla’s legs and he couldn’t catch up again and it ran for four.
The camera quickly panned toward Rohit Sharma who was furious with Chawla’s misfielding and hurled out some words in utter frustration and anger toward the leg-spinner. Chawla could only bore an embarrassed look as he knew he’d let down his captain with such a poor, careless, reckless fielding effort.
Meanwhile, Gujarat Titans have piled up an above 200 runs total. After Shubman Gill’s half-century (56 off 34), there were scintillating knocks from David Miller (46 off 22), Abhinav Manohar (42 off 21), and Rahul Tewatia (20 off 5) that propelled the hosts to 207/6 in 20 overs.
Mumbai Indians have lost their captain and opener Rohit Sharma early in the chase, caught and bowled by Hardik Pandya, and are dented early. The onus is on youngsters Cameron Green and Ishan Kishan to take the innings forward.
Teams:
Gujarat Titans (Playing XI): Wriddhiman Saha(w), Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya(c), Vijay Shankar, David Miller, Abhinav Manohar, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Mohammed Shami, Noor Ahmad, Mohit Sharma
Mumbai Indians (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma(c), Ishan Kishan(w), Cameron Green, Suryakumar Yadav, Tim David, Nehal Wadhera, Kumar Kartikeya, Arjun Tendulkar, Riley Meredith, Piyush Chawla, Jason Behrendorff
