Former India player Sanjay Manjrekar has painted a grim picture of Rohit Sharma’s current form, saying “things are slipping away” from the senior batter who has reached a point in his career where he has to “push himself every morning”. The Mumbai Indians star has flopped in the first two matches of the ongoing Indian Premier League, getting out for eight in the team’s latest game against the Gujarat Titans on Saturday.
“Rohit Sharma is clearly going through a phase. He’s not the Rohit Sharma of, say, three to four years ago. He’s at a stage in his career where he has to push himself every morning — train hard and be at his best — because things are slipping away for him. He’s still relying on his natural talent and instincts,” Manjrekar said on JioStar.
MI lost the game to GT by 36 runs.
Analysing Mumbai Indians’ performance with the bat in the last two matches, Manjrekar said, “Ryan Rickelton, being a South African, will take time to adjust to Indian pitches. Very few South African batters, barring AB de Villiers and Heinrich Klaasen, have truly flourished on Indian pitches. So, we’ll have to give him time.
“Apart from that, Tilak Varma and Suryakumar Yadav, along with Robin Minz and some of the other players, form the batting line-up. However, to me, it still looks a little unconvincing. And a lot of them rely on pitches where the ball comes onto the bat nicely.
“There’s pace and bounce, and even in that chase where they needed 12 or 13 runs, if it had been at Wankhede Stadium, they would have likely come very close to the target.”
Manjrekar, however, remained optimistic about the Mumbai Indians’ campaign despite their early losses. Set a challenging target of 197, MI were stopped at 160 for six on Saturday.
“Mumbai Indians didn’t look in the race when they lost two wickets for 35. In comparison, the Gujarat Titans had around 129 runs for their first two wickets. After that, it seemed like Tilak Varma and Suryakumar Yadav were trying to build a partnership.
“The challenge with building a partnership in a chase of over 190 is that the required run rate starts to suffer, and that’s exactly what happened. In the end, you have to say that the Gujarat Titans batted better — I thought they got maybe 15 to 20 runs over par.
“The dew never came in, which made Mumbai’s job even more difficult. But despite all that, two losses are quite typical for Mumbai Indians. They still seem to be on the right track to go on and win the title,” Manjrekar concluded.
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