Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma’s terrible IPL 2022 season came to an end with an atrocious innings that he will want to forget as soon as possible. Against the Delhi Capitals, the MI opener Rohit Sharma struggled for his 2 runs from 13 balls as Khaleed Ahmed made him dance to his tune of swing and seam movement.
That brought curtains to a disastrous season for one of the finest ever white-ball batsmen in the world.
Rohit managed 268 runs at an average of 19.16 while striking at a lowly 120 with a best of 48; this also meant that for the first time in his IPL career, dating back to the inaugural season in 2008, Sharma couldn’t hit a single fifty across an entire season!
Renowned statistician Kausthub Gudipati revealed an interesting statistic that summed up Rohit Sharma’s horrific IPL 2022 season: Rohit Sharma becomes the first player to open the batting throughout an IPL season without any 50+ score.
Rohit Sharma becomes the first player to open the batting throughout an IPL season without any 50+ score.
— Kausthub Gudipati (@kaustats) May 21, 2022
Rohit has been opening for about a year less than a decade and although he looked in good touch in the international matches before the IPL, the MI opener didn’t come good this year. He played a few attractive knocks, getting starts on many occasions but failed to capitalize.
On Saturday, against the Capitals, though, Rohit Sharma couldn’t even get a proper start as he looked clueless against Khaleel Ahmed’s swing.
He faced two deliveries in the first over, from Khaleel – on the first he blocked solidly but on the second missed his big booming drive, the ball missing the edge by a thin margin.
Then came the over that will make Rohit think the next time he’s pondering for a left-arm pacer for the Indian team. Out of 6 legal balls, he faced from Khaleel in the third over of the innings, Rohit could only place his bat on just one! He missed 5 deliveries as Khaleel put on an exhibition of outswing and inswing with some assistance from the pitch as well to make life difficult for the MI skipper. However, the bowler didn’t have the wicket to show as Rohit missed 5 of his shots but also didn’t nick any.
Sharma got off the mark, on his 10th ball. He was 2* off 12 balls when he chipped a full ball from Anrich Nortje straight to Shardul Thakur at mid-on to end his ruinous stay in the middle. Sharma looked at the bottom of his bat – but he’d know better than anyone that the issue was not with his bat.
