Mumbai Indians (MI) blew Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) out of their city on the back of Suryakumar Yadav's career night at the Wankhede Stadium on May 9 (Tuesday). The five-time champions chased down a daunting target of 200 runs without even breaking a sweat. Rohit Sharma's men registered a six-wicket win with 21 balls to spare. Suryakumar exploded in front of his home crowd and clobbered RCB bowlers to all corners of the ground. He scored 83 runs off 35 balls with the help of seven fours and six sixes.
While Surykumar rode his form and helped MI register another win, the franchise's captain Rohit sustained yet another failure with the bat. After smashing the first ball of his innings for a boundary, the Hitman never looked settled on the crease and Wanindu Hasaranga ended his misery. The right-handed batter could only score seven runs off eight balls.
Despite Rohit looking like a pale shadow of himself, former India captain and head coach, Ravi Shastri voiced support for the MI captain and said that Rohit will be instrumental if the most successful team in IPL makes the playoffs.
"If they make the playoffs, a Man of the Match, I can guarantee you in one of the games in the playoffs," Ravi Shastri told Star Sports.
"It's a positive and it's a danger sign for other teams. He is going to wake up, he is going to come out and smack it one day. I just hope he keeps the shape when he is attempting those aggressive shots. He has got so much of time to play the shots. He is bound to come back to form, there is no doubt about it," he added.
Rohit's struggle with the bat in IPL has been well documented. This season, the stylish right-handed batter has scored 191 runs in 11 matches at a strike rate of 124.84 and is averaging 17.36. While Rohit usually likes to capitalise during field restrictions, his numbers in powerplay overs of IPL 2023 are below par. Prior to the game against RCB, Rohit even failed to open in account in consecutive matches.
Not only this season but Rohit's numbers with the bat in the last five-six seasons have been a genuine cause of concern for MI. Since 2017, Rohit has scored 400+ runs only once in the cash-rich tournament.
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