IPL 2022: A collective performance from bat and ball is missing – Rohit Sharma

Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma believes his team is missing a collective effort from bat as well the ball in the ongoing Indian Premier League 2022.

The five-time champions succumbed to their fourth straight loss of the season after they were beaten by Royal Challengers Bangalore by seven wickets at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune on Saturday.

Mumbai Indians could only manage 151 runs on the board after Faf du Plessis won the toss and decided to bowl first. In fact, MI were reeling at 79-6 after 13.2 overs and they were able to go past the 150-run mark, courtesy Suryakumar Yadav, who played a fine knock of 37-ball, unbeaten 68.

However, Rohit feels it was never going to be enough despite SKY’s heroics with the bat. The right-hander has scored two fifties in the two matches he has played but the other batters to failed to chip in their contribution. Rohit believes the batters need to give enough runs to the batters and once they come up a collective effort, they will be good in the remaining matches.

“Lot of areas actually [to address], we want some of our batters to bat as deep as possible,” Rohit said. “That is one thing we are looking at, if we get runs on the board, there’s something for the bowlers to do. In the last two games, we were not able to do that. Last game, we got 160, this game we got 150-odd, on a pitch like that, it’s not enough.

“I wanted to bat as long as possible, but unfortunately I got out at the wrong time. We were hitting that partnership, we just got off to a 50-run partnership, got out at the wrong time, that is something that’s hurting us a little bit. Definitely not a 150 pitch, Surya showed us if you bat sensibly, you can get more than what you got. Lot of credit to Surya at least to get us to 150, but we knew that it wasn’t going to be enough. I have always spoken of collective performance both from bat and ball, that seems to be missing at the moment. Once that comes through, I think we should be good.”

On the other hand, Mumbai Indians beefed up their batting against RCB as they decided to add Ramandeep Singh to the final XI in place of Daniel Sams. Despite selecting a heavy batting side, MI found themselves struggling at 79-6. Furthermore, Tymal Mills was replaced by Jaydev Unadkat.

Speaking on the team’s combination, Rohit said, “It was just the combination that we felt would be ideal on certain pitches and certain opposition. We wanted to strengthen our batting, unfortunately we had few overseas guys who were unavailable, so we wanted to get the best from whatever we had,” Rohit said without disclosing the reason for the absentees.”

Mumbai Indians will next face Punjab Kings at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune on Wednesday.