Rohit Sharma’s performance in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 has been a cause for concern for the Mumbai Indians for the second year in a row. In the 2022 season, he scored only 268 runs in 14 matches, with an average of just 19.14 and no half-century to his name.
Although he managed to score a fifty in the ongoing 2023 IPL season, his form has still been lackluster, with an average of 18.40 in 10 innings and a total of 184 runs. His struggles continued on Saturday when he was dismissed for a duck, marking his second consecutive duck in the tournament.
This poor showing has drawn criticism from former Indian cricketer Kris Srikkanth.
During Mumbai Indians’ innings after winning the toss, Rohit Sharma was outsmarted by MS Dhoni’s tactics in the third over.
Dhoni, the Chennai Super Kings’ captain, stood close to the stumps when Deepak Chahar bowled to Rohit, trying to unsettle the Mumbai skipper. Rohit attempted to play a lap shot against a slower delivery but mistimed it, resulting in an edge that was caught by Ravindra Jadeja at gully. Dhoni’s clever strategy had worked brilliantly.
Rohit Sharma’s dismissal for a duck in the match against Chennai Super Kings was his second consecutive duck in the ongoing IPL 2023 tournament, as he had also been dismissed for zero in the previous game against Punjab Kings in Mohali.
Since his innings of 44 against Punjab Kings on April 22, he has only managed to score five runs in four innings.
Following Rohit’s dismissal, Kris Srikkanth made a scathing comment about him while commentating, referring to him as “No Hit Sharma” and suggesting that he should change his name to “NO HIT SHARMA” from “Ro-Hitman Sharma.” Srikkanth went further, stating that he wouldn’t even include Rohit in the playing XI if he was the captain of Mumbai Indians.
In addition to his poor performance in the match against Chennai Super Kings, Rohit Sharma also set an unwanted record, as it was his 16th dismissal for a duck in his IPL career. This surpasses the previous record held by Dinesh Karthik, Mandeep Singh, and Sunil Narine.
Notably, eleven of those ducks occurred while he was captaining the team, which is also a record. This surpassed Gautam Gambhir’s previous record of ten ducks as a captain in the IPL.
It was a disappointing outing for Mumbai Indians, who struggled to reach 139 for eight in their allotted 20 overs, with Nehal Wadhera’s 64-run knock being the only significant contribution.
In response, Chennai Super Kings comfortably chased down the target in 17.4 overs, losing just four wickets in the process, which allowed them to move up to the second spot in the IPL points table.