Rohit Sharma has been one of the icons of the IPL and the spearhead of the Mumbai Indians franchise: the Nagpur-born Rohit Sharma has brought all the glory to the Ambani-owned franchise.
From 2008 to 2012, MI reached only one IPL final, in 2010, which they lost to CSK. However, when MI Skipper was given the captaincy duties, in 2013, he turned the history of the franchise and the IPL league itself around, by taking them to a record, unprecedented 5 IPL titles from 2013 to 2020.
With the bat, too, the right-hander has been amongst the tournament’s leading scorers:
With 5764 runs, Rohit Sharma is the 3rd highest run-scorer in the IPL history
However, he’s had a couple of under-par seasons. And there are chances that he may struggle for big runs this year as well. He had a forgettable tournament last year: 268 runs in 16 innings without any half-century, and MI finished 10th in the 10-team tournament.
Nonetheless, there are good signs that he may have a bumper season this year, in IPL 2023:
Here are 2 key reasons why Hitman could score heavily in IPL 2023:
MI will be back to playing 7 home league matches at the Wankhede
This is the primary reason why Rohit Sharma and MI batters will be looking forward to the IPL 2023: as the tournament returns to the traditional home-and-away format for the first time since 2019, Mumbai will play their 7 home league-stage matches at the Wankhede stadium – which is world-famous for its good batting-friendly surfaces and small boundaries compared to most other grounds in the country.
Rohit has a good record at the Wankhede Stadium: at the Wankhede, Rohit Sharma averages 34 with a strike rate of 133 and has cracked 14 of his 40 fifties here.
Rohit Sharma is in good nick going into the IPL 2023
While last year, Rohit was out of touch heading into the IPL 2022, this time, he’s been in superb nick and confidence heading into the IPL 2023.
Since his return from injury, in 2023, Skipper cracked an entertaining ODI century against New Zealand and then a gritty yet filled with aggressive strokes Test century against Australia in the Nagpur Test where most of the other batters across both teams struggled to get going. There were a couple of half-centuries as well.
This shows that Hitman has been in good rhythm, perhaps has cleared out the little tidbits of technical flaws he had last year.
Another change we might see in Hitman’s batting this IPL 2023 is he could be taking a bit more time to settle and then launch attack, instead of looking to play an attacking brand of cricket right from the onset of his innings, which is not something that is natural to him. If he indeed reverses to the batting style and tempo that suits him, then we might see Rohit Sharma stealing the show in IPL 2023 with his blockbuster knocks.
