Former India, cricketer, Sanjay Manjrekar has opined that he felt ahead of the Indian Premier (IPL) 2022, Rohit Sharma might follow Virat Kohli’s footsteps and resign as Mumbai Indians (MI) captaincy and hand over the baton to Kieron Pollard to focus purely on his batting. It is to be noted that Rohit has not been doing well with the bat for MI in the last couple of seasons. 

During a recent chat with ESPNCricinfo, Sanjay Manjrekar asserted that the all-rounder Kieron Pollard adds a lot of value to the team’s set-up. He also revealed that he had envisioned a leadership role for the Caribbean cricketer, even after his poor run this season- 47 runs in four innings so far. Manjrekar reckons that Pollard just needs one good game to be at his ferocious best, and feels that the 34-year-old is doing his job well.

Sanjay Manjrekar explained, “I feel Pollard still adds value. [Before the season] I even felt Rohit Sharma might leave captaincy like Virat Kohli, relax a bit, play as a pure batter and hand the responsibility to Pollard who is a brilliant international captain. Pollard still has the capability, I can see that from the sixes he hits. He’ll contribute in the pressure match, the crunch game.”

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He further added, “But they need to reach there first and that’s not on Pollard, it never has been. He’s never contributed throughout the season for Mumbai Indians. He plays one innings in a pressure game and sees the team through. Others need to work better because Pollard is doing his usual job.”

After Virat Kohli resigned as the captain of the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and the Indian team, he was shortly replaced by Rohit Sharma in the Tests and ODI formats too. While Sharma was named India’s all-formats captain, Faf du Plessis is leading RCB in IPL 2022. 

Rohit Sharma has had a decent run with Team India, but he has been struggling with MI in the IPL 2022 as the five-time champions are yet to open their account and are reeling at the bottom of the points table. Speaking of Sharma’s form with the bat, Manjrekar felt that the skipper will need to play freely.

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Sanjay Manjrekar said, “His record has been like this for the last 3-4 seasons, average less than 30, strike-rate not 150 or 160. When he plays for India his numbers get better… because then he only thinks about himself and less about the team. When playing IPL, he tries to play the anchor role similar to what KL Rahul did with Punjab Kings and Hardik Pandya did in the last matc. If he plays freely, we’ll see the Rohit Sharma we see in Indian cricket.”