Mumbai Indians (MI) head coach Mahela Jayawardene on Monday (May 5) explained why Rohit Sharma is playing as an Impact Player in the ongoing IPL, revealing that latter has been nursing a niggle since the Champions Trophy 2025.
Rohit missed the game against LSG earlier in the season after taking a blow on the knee and has primarily been used as an Impact Player, often coming on to the field just before MI's bowling efforts come to an end.
On the eve of MI’s clash against GT, Jayawardene said that the plan was not to use Rohit as an Impact Player but they needed boundary runners at some of the venues.
The MI coach further stated that they didn't want to push the veteran opener too hard with the injury he is carrying at the moment, as his batting holds greater value to them.
“No, it wasn't at the start. Obviously, Rohit was on the field for some of the games, but if you look at the composition of the team, most of the guys are doing dual roles and in some of the venues you need boundary runners. You need guys with speed and all that, so that also comes into play and Rohit has also been nursing a niggle from the champions trophy, so we wanted to make sure that we don't push him too hard, manage that, while his batting is the most important thing," said Jayawardene in the pre-match presser.
Despite being relegated to the impact subs bench, Jayawardene spoke about Rohit performing the leadership role from outside.
"But he's contributed tremendously whether he's on the field or not. I think if you've seen like he's always ground in the dugout or he goes in during timeouts and there's a lot of communications been happening so actively involved, but it's just overall planning for us to make sure that we have all the bowling options that we need on the field. And we have a lot of senior heads as well. Most likely to be taken out would be either a Surya or a Tilak or someone like that, a domestic batter, so it's a hard choice for me, but it's a good headache to have," Jayawardene remarked.
After struggling earlier in the season, Rohit Sharma has come back into form over the past few games. The right-hander has scored 293 runs at a strike rate of 155.02 in 10 matches so far, including three half-centuries.
