IPL 2023: Rohit Sharma has not had a great season for the Mumbai Indians, and he has also been having trouble leading the team to victory. In the meantime, Ravi Shastri is of the opinion that higher captaincy rivals may have had an effect on him.
In the 2023 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), senior opener Rohit Sharma is still in charge of leading the Mumbai Indians (MI), who are five-time defending and past record champions. The performance of Michigan this season, on the other hand, has caused some people to scratch their heads because the team is fighting to keep its place in the postseason race despite the fact that it is no longer the uncontested powerhouse it was a few years ago.
Additionally, Rohit’s performance at the plate has been about par for the course. This season, he has scored 184 runs for the team at a paltry average of 18.40 and a low strike rate of 126.89. He has scored just a 50 and a maximum knock of 65. He ranks sixth on the list of the top run scorers for the side. Ravi Shastri, a former head coach for Team India, is of the opinion that the difficulties that Rohit faced as captain may have increased, which may have had an effect on his overall performance.
Shastri, in an interview with ESPNCricinfo, stated, “The resources you had two or three years ago aren’t quite the same. It’s possible that the difficulties he faced as captain were doubled. In comparison to two years before, when everything was nice and set and you just had to “go out there and do the job,” the workload for a captain would have more than doubled.
“And then comes the challenge of how do you get them [the team] going, how do you motivate that bunch, how do you create a combination, how do you see who is the best in that lot to fit in and deliver at a certain stage of the game,” continued Shastri. “And then comes the challenge of how do you get them [the team] going,”
If you start getting on a purple patch where you are scoring runs, the job as a captain becomes much easier, the body language on the field changes, and that energy on the field is different as compared to when you are not getting runs, which is why I think Rohit is questioning his abilities as a captain,” said Shastri. “If you start getting on a purple patch where you are scoring runs, the job as a captain becomes much easier.” You have the potential to fail regardless of who you are.
“This is the point at which it is more crucial that your performances come into play, as the captain of the team. Because he is at a later time in his career and they have a different style of team, it is more difficult now. After a year or two of playing together, the same squad has a good chance of becoming an outstanding one. Shastri came to the conclusion that it was the captain’s responsibility to strike the optimal balance.