Mumbai Indians Must End Their Dependency upon Captain Rohit Sharma

By: Sandipan Bose

The Mumbai Indians have a paranoid dependence on Rohit Sharma. If he clicks with the bat, the Mumbai team performs better. If he doesn’t, Mumbai Indians’ performance is all over the place.

Their match against Rising Pune Supergiants on Saturday, which was the IPL opener, suggests that Rohit does have a big role to play for his team to succeed.

The moment Rohit was trapped in front of the stumps off Pune’s Ishant Sharma at the packed Wankhede stadium, it affected the momentum of his team.

Practically, it was as good as over when they lost more wickets up front and it was Harbhajan Singh’s knock that saved the team from further embarrassment.

Incidentally, Mumbai didn’t have a great start to their IPL season last year either. They kept losing matches from winning positions in the first leg of the tournament.

It was frustrating for the team, but Rohit kept pressing the cause of his team with some scintillating performances.

Eventually, Mumbai picked up pace in the second leg of the event so much so that they emerged as the champions. Once again it was Rohit Sharma who did his tricks at the top of the order.

This year too, the Mumbai Indians have started showing how much it means to the team when it comes to Rohit Sharma. Which is good for the Mumbai batsman, but not good news for the team.

Because Rohit has not been in good form in recent days. He did do well during the World T20 semifinal match against the West Indies, but he wasn’t a consistent performer in the world event.

Yes, it doesn’t take a long time to get those big runs for a player of Rohit’s caliber, but Mumbai’s dependency on him all the time isn’t the stuff cricket is made of!