Mumbai Indians (MI) suffered a massive defeat against Gujarat Titans (GT) in Qualifier 2 of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad, on Friday (May 26), which ended their campaign for this season of the IPL.
After a slow start, for which they are known, MI made a storming comeback and won several matches in the second half of the season. Despite having the most inexperienced and unbalanced bowling unit without bowling spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, Mumbai made giant leaps in the tournament, all thanks to their supreme batting unit.
Piyush Chawla and Akash Madhwal tried everything from their end in the tournament to reduce some burden on the batters. But even that effort went in vain, and unfortunately, the dream of winning the 6th IPL faded away, at least for this season.
The five-time IPL champions Mumbai missed Bumrah throughout the tournament, whereas Jofra Archer looked like a pale shadow of himself in whatever little he played. But still, despite all the problems, MI exceeded expectations and did a tremendous job by reaching Qualifier 2. However, Sanjay Manjrekar feels Rohit Sharma wasn’t that good with his tactics in this edition of the IPL.
Manjrekar, the former Indian player and now a veteran broadcaster, feels that the MI captain Rohit made several mistakes in the first half. According to Manjrekar, Rohit’s team selection was questionable in the initial phase.
Speaking on ESPN Cricinfo after Mumbai’s defeat in the Eliminator 2, the 57-year-old Manjrekar said, “Tactically the two best teams have been CSK and Titans, why not Mumbai Indians. So tactically also with off field tactics, their players selection in the first half as well, where you would wonder why certain players played at that stage and there were some important losses that happened so all those you would think those are the controllables that he didn’t do a great job.”
“What I won’t be too critical about is failures with the bat but tactically I don’t think he was at his best this IPL.” added Manjrekar.
In his 16th season of IPL, the skipper accumulated 332 runs with just two fifties to his account, coming at a dismal average of 20.75. His best knock came against Delhi Capitals (DC) on April 11, when he scored a classy 65 off 45 balls which steered his side to a six-wicket win. For the unversed, Rohit recorded his joint-third-lowest tally of runs in an IPL season since his debut.
