IPL 2017: “Rohit Sharma Is A Naturally Gifted Player,” Says Mahela Jayawardene
Apr 3, 2017 at 12:33 PM
The new Head Coach of Mumbai Indians, Mahela Jayawardene, who replaced Ricky Ponting said that he is looking forward to work with Rohit Sharna, the skipper of Mumbai Indians as he has termed Rohit as a naturally gifted player,
“I think Rohit is a very instinctive player, naturally gifted. He just goes with the flow and he creates his opportunities and I think that suits quite well when you are a T20 captain because you need to react to situations out there in the middle pretty quickly and probably try and stay a couple of overs ahead,” the former Sri Lankan skipper said.
“He has been captaining MI for the last four-five years and he is showing that. At a young age, he has taken a bigger role and done that. It is important to have that versatility as well relaxed and calm demeanour. There are are a lot of things that happen, not just on the field, but a lot of things that happen around that as well, so to keep perspective and handle that so that is demands of a modern T20 captain these days,” he further added.
It is to be noted that Rohit himself is returning from an injury as he has been just been declared fit to participate in the game. Rohit returned to competitive cricket last month after a long injury lay-off of four months. But he again nursed a small injury and was ruled out of the Deodhar Trophy as well. The coach said that it can be a disadvantage for the players due to lack of match practice,
“Sometimes it is good, but sometimes it can be a disadvantage because they have not had much practice of matches. They just play Big Bash and then a long lay-off. Lasith is coming back after injuries, so we wanted him to play as many games, so he will play two more T20s [against Bangladesh] before he arrives here, which is good. With different players, it is going to be different how you want to manage them. At the same time, our schedule, we get eight games in 16 or 18 days which include travel. That is something we need to be mindful of.”
The two-time IPL champion will open its campaign against Rising Pune Supergiant on April 6. The good news for the team is that skipper Rohit Sharma and all-rounder Hardik Pandya will be participating in the league from day one whereas Lasith Malinga will join the team from the second or third game, after the T20I series against Bangladesh.