Rohit Sharma’s biggest strength is his ability to gather information and use it, reckons Mahela Jayawardene
Mahela Jayawardene points to Rohit's preparation as captain for his success
|BCCI
While Rohit Sharma has been described as an ‘instinctive’ leader, his coach at Mumbai Indians, Mahela Jayawardene, has admitted that Rohit’s biggest strength is his ability to gather a lot of information. He also added that the Indian opener’s keenness to learn things helps the franchise.
Since taking over the rein from the Australian skipper Ricky Ponting, Rohit Sharma has transformed the way people have looked at the Mumbai Indians franchise. Starting from pulling off a low-scoring win against CSK in 2015, the Paltans have upped their show in every tournament. Moreso, after the 2019 IPL, they became the first side to have four IPL titles under their belt.
As a player too, the Indian opener has four titles, having won one earlier during his stint with the Deccan Chargers. While a lot of people have complimented Rohit’s unique captaincy style, they have also called his captaincy style, instinctive. Mumbai Indians’ coach Mahela Jayawardene revealed that the 33-year-old’s biggest strength as a skipper is his ability to gather information beforehand on top of being instinctive.
“He (Rohit) is an instinctive leader for sure. But at the same time Rohit gathers a lot of information as well, I think that’s his strength,” Jayawardene said on ‘Sony Ten Pit Stop’ show aired on Sony Sports Instagram page, reported TOI.
The Sri Lankan also revealed incidents where the Indian was readily looking at footages to get certain information before a high-profile encounter. He also stated that it is Rohit Sharma’s preparation which rather makes his captaincy style more ‘instinctive’ and not the other way around.
“He comes and asks questions… sometimes you walk into the team room for us to do some analysing and you see Rohit the analyst, just looking through certain stuff and all that… so like that he gets those little snippets from the guys, so he is prepared,” added the former Sri Lanka captain.
“So as long as you are prepared and you are instinctively making those calls and being proactive, that’s all what you can ask from him and Ro (hit) is brilliant in that,” he concluded.
