‘Rohit should change his name to ‘No Hit Sharma’’: Srikkanth pulls no punches as MI skipper’s IPL 2023 slump deepens

For the second consecutive season, Rohit Sharma has been struggling immensely in the Indian Premier League with his season average being below 20 again.

In 2022, he had managed only 268 runs in 14 games in Mumbai Indians’ forgettable season, averaging just 19.14 without a single half-century score. While he managed to notch up a fifty once in the ongoing IPL 2023 season, he has averaged only 18.40 in 10 innings, scoring 184 runs. On Saturday, the slump deepened as he incurred his second consecutive duck in the tournament leading to a scathing attack from India legend Kris Srikkanth.

Rohit had fallen prey to MS Dhoni’s stunning trap in the third over of Mumbai’s innings after being asked to bat first. Playing some mind games with the MI skipper, Dhoni stood close to the stumps against a delivery from Deepak Chahar. Rohit looked to play the lap shot against the slower one, but ended by mistiming it and edged it to Ravindra Jadeja at gully.

The three-ball dismissal was his second consecutive duck in IPL 2023 after having faced a similar in the Mohali game against Punjab Kings earlier this week. In fact, since his 44 against PBKS at home on April 22, he has scored only five runs in four innings.

Moments after the dismissal, Srikkanth savaged Rohit while on commentary, calling him “Not Hit Sharma”. Rohit Sharma should change his name to ‘NO HIT SHARMA’, I will not even play him in XI if I was Captain of MI.”

It was also Rohit’s 16th dismissal for a duck in his IPL career, the most ever incurred by a batter in the history of the tournament as he went past Dinesh Karthik, Mandeep Singh and Sunil Narine. Eleven of those dismissals came while he was a captain, which also is a record in itself as he released Gautam Gambhir of his undesirable feat in IPL.

It was a forgettable outing for Mumbai as well. Riding on Nehal Wadhera’s 64-run knock, Mumbai Indians huffed and puffed their way to 139 for eight against CSK at the Chepauk. Chennai chased down the target in 17.4 overs for the loss of just four wickets to jump to the second spot in the table.