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Australia's T20 World Cup 2021-winning captain Aaron Finch has decoded Indian skipper Rohit Sharma's approach in the powerplay overs. Rohit has been attacking at the start in the white-ball format (international cricket). Finch believes Rohit can do that as he knows that Virat Kohli is at no.3 and capable of fixing 'any mistakes' the opener makes.
"When you look, when Rohit's made that conscious decision, he's had Virat coming in behind him at number three. So there's an ability for him to say, you know what, I've got the guy behind that will fix any mistakes that I make. But you can't have everybody in the team just looking to swing for the fences from ball one. So that's a really, that's a good question. And I understand that Rohit's done that, and he's been very successful in doing it," Finch told PTI.
Finch on Kohli's strike rate
Ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025, Finch shared his opinion on Kohli's strike rate as well. He said that the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) batter does not need to score at a strike rate of 200 and 150 is enough.
"Maybe if his strike rate goes from 140 to 150, he can absolutely do that. No issues whatsoever. But how many times has he been in a situation where he's had to almost dig RCB out of the hole because everybody else has fallen around him? So, like I said before, I would bank the runs every day of the week from a top-three player. Because that gives the rest of the order so much freedom. That gives you the option to be more aggressive than the other batters," the former Australian opener said.
In the previous season, Kohli scored 741 runs from 15 innings averaging 61.75, including one century and five fifties. His strike rate was 154.69, the best he has ever recorded in an IPL season. Even during the IPL 2016 season where he scored a record-breaking 973 runs, his strike rate was 152.03.
Rohit's strike rate in previous IPL edition
On the other hand, Rohit's strike rate was not too far behind Kohli. While Mumbai Indians (MI) managed to win just four games last season, Rohit recorded his best strike rate in an IPL season. He scored 417 runs from 14 innings averaging 32.07, including one century and one half-century. The opener's strike rate was 150.
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