According to Sanjay Manjrekar, senior Mumbai Indians (MI) batsman Rohit Sharma is “going through a phase” and needs to “push himself every morning” at this point in his career.
Following a four-ball duck against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) earlier in the competition, Rohit was dismissed for eight runs in Saturday’s IPL 2025 encounter against Gujarat Titans (GT).
On JioStar, Manjrekar stated, “Rohit Sharma is obviously going through a phase.”
“Rohit Sharma is not the same person he was three or four years ago. At this point in his career, he needs to push himself every morning to practice hard and perform at his peak since he is losing ground. He continues to rely on his intuition and innate talent.
Rohit has also had a slump in his international cricket career. Beginning with Bangladesh’s tour of India in September 2024, he had a terrible run in Test cricket, scoring an average of 10.93 and a maximum of 52, his sole score of 50 or more throughout this time. Although he didn’t play a significant innings—the 76 in the final against New Zealand was the only time he reached a half-century—he contributed to India’s victory in the Champions Trophy by consistently providing the side with fast starts.
MI, the five-time winners, have already dropped both of their games this season. They struggled in the pursuit of 197 on a sluggish ground and lost to GT by 36 runs after losing to CSK by four wickets.
The South African batsman Ryan Rickelton, Rohit’s new opening partner this season, has similarly had trouble getting going in both games. Manjrekar feels that Rickelton, who is playing in the IPL for the first time, should be given more time to get used to his surroundings, but he does not think the MI lineup appears to be strong enough.
“Ryan Rickelton, being a South African, will take time to adjust to Indian pitches,” he stated. With the exception of Heinrich Klaasen and AB de Villiers, very few South African hitters have really thrived on Indian fields. Thus, we will need to give him some time. In addition, Robin Minz, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav, and a few other players make up the batting lineup. It still seems a little implausible to me, though.
Additionally, many of them depend on pitches where the ball hits the bat nicely. There is bounce and speed, and even in that chase where they needed to score 12 or 13 runs, they probably would have been very near to the goal if it had taken place at Wankhede Stadium.”
However, Manjrekar stated that it was too soon to predict how the squad would perform for the remainder of the season while outlining the mistakes made by MI’s hitters against GT.
“When the Mumbai Indians lost two wickets for 35 [versus GT], they didn’t look competitive. The Gujarat Titans, in contrast, scored about 129 runs for their opening two wickets. Following that, it appeared as though Tilak Varma and Suryakumar Yadav were attempting to form a collaboration. Building a partnership in a chase of over 190 presents a hurdle because the necessary run rate begins to deteriorate, and that is precisely what happened. You have to admit that the Gujarat Titans batted well in the end; I estimated their score to be between 15 and 20 runs over par.
The fact that the dew never arrived made Mumbai’s task considerably more challenging. Two losses, however, are rather common for Mumbai Indians in spite of everything. As they have done in the past, most notably in 2014, they still appear to be headed in the right direction to win the title.
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