Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma admitted it was a disappointing result after his team suffered a huge loss of 62 runs in the second qualifier against Gujarat Titans at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Friday, which knocked them out of the IPL 2023. The five-time champions were blown away by a majestic century from Shubman Gill, who smashed 129 runs off just 60 balls.
Gill’s thundering knock helped GT post a massive 233 runs on the board, which was above par. The right-hander got to his fifty off just 32 balls and then reached his third hundred of IPL 2023 in 49 balls as he batted in the beast mode.
Meanwhile, only three Mumbai Indians batters could score in double digits and they could only manage 171 runs on the board and lost by a considerable margin. Suryakumar Yadav top-scored with 61 runs from 38 balls but the rest of the batters failed to get going, barring Tilak Varma, who smashed 41 from 14 balls.
In fact, MI bowlers were taken to the cleaners by Shubman Gill, who was just unstoppable on the day. Barring Jason Behrendorff and Kumar Kartikeya, all the MI bowlers conceded their runs at an economy rate of more than 10.
Rohit wrote on his Instagram account, “Disappointing result but very proud of the effort from the team throughout the season.
On the other hand, it was a disappointing season for Rohit Sharma as a batter. The MI skipper could only score 334 runs in 16 IPL matches at an average of 20.75 and a strike rate of 132.80.
Former Australian all-rounder Tom Moody said it was clearly a disappointing year for Rohit with the bat but lauded the right-hander for adopting an aggressive approach.
Moody said on ESPN Cricinfo, “Clearly a disappointing year with the bat, there is no question about that. He would look back on it a little bit frustrated.”
He added: “But one thing I did admire with Rohit Sharma was the consistency of the way he presented himself and the intent he played with and I think that’s really important is that he clearly had that mantra this year that this is the way that we are playing our cricket, we’ve got the depth in our batting, I am going to lead from the front and show that intent.”
MI had a weak bowling line-up in the absence of Jasprit Bumrah and Jofra Archer and did well to qualify for the playoffs.
