IPL 2020 | Rohit Sharma is getting better and hopefully, he'll be back soon, claims Kieron Pollard
Kieron Pollard has revealed that Rohit Sharma is approaching fitness fast to be eligible for the late stage of Mumbai Indians’ campaign in the Indian Premier League 2020. The stand-in skipper has also joked that 2020, despite not being an odd year, has worked well for the three-time champions.
Rohit Sharma has been out of Mumbai Indians’ campaign for almost two weeks now and with him not being picked for the Australian tour, created a lot of confusion about his availability for the remainder of the IPL. Meanwhile, PTI reported that the BCCI medical team is set to assess the Mumbaikar on Sunday to take a final call on whether or not he is going to be a part of the series Down Under, Kieron Pollard revealed that Rohit is recovering fast and might even play a part for MI this season.
“Rohit is getting better and hopefully he'll be back soon,” Pollard said in the post-match presentation after beating Delhi Capitals comprehensively.
In what was an unusual tactic for Mumbai, Pollard, a highly-successful captain for Mumbai with 16 wins off 17 games, bowled Jayant Yadav and Krunal Pandya inside the powerplay, bringing Jasprit Bumrah as the second change. It paid off with both Krunal and Jayant bowling economically to deny Delhi Capitals a good start.
“I bowled Krunal and Jayant in the powerplay because I thought there was some hold in the surface and I thought the grip would aid the seamers. Bumrah, I kept delaying him, and in this kind of track, it was more useful to bowl him in the middle. He kept looking at me and wanted to bowl in the powerplay. We wanted to bowl spinners in the powerplay with some grip on offer,” the Barbadian added.
With 395 runs in 11 matches, Ishan Kishan has been a big positive for the three-time champions and played an unbeaten 47-ball 72-run innings last afternoon to help MI to a nine-wicket victory. Pollard praised his attitude of converting starts to big ones and joked that it is unusual that they are successful in an even year.
“Ishan has gotten better in every game, and once he gets going, he's hard to get rid of. He didn't even start, Ishan, in the playing XI, came to No. 4 and then came out to open and just blew us away. Rohit is getting better and hopefully he'll be back soon. We need to play another couple of good games and get to the final. This isn't supposed to be our year (even number), but it's been working for us so far.”