Rohit led from the front in terms of driving the way we wanted to play: Boucher

AHMEDABAD: Mumbai Indians head coach Mark Boucher threw all of his weight behind skipper Rohit Sharma in terms of his lean batting form in IPL 2023, saying the right-handed opener was leading the initiative of batting in the ultra-attacking way they wished for in the competition.

Rohit made only 332 runs in 16 innings of IPL 2023 with just two fifties at a strike rate of 132.80. On Friday, in the Qualifier 2 clash against Gujarat Titans, he could make only eight runs as Mumbai, despite Tilak Varma’s attacking 14-ball 43 and Suryakumar Yadav’s quick 61, were bowled out for 171 in 18.2 overs, crashing out of the competition.

“Rohit is a quality player. What I do think is that he led from the front in regards to driving toward the sort of way we wanted to play. Our batting this season was fantastic. We went out at the beginning of the season and we looked at our stats and thought we could improve in certain phases of the game. And the captain is the best person to go out there and drive that vision as well.”

“So if you look at how we did in the powerplays compared to last season, from 7 to 10, you know we really upped the scoring rates and we played a good positive brand of cricket, which will stand us in good stead because the guys will gain a lot of confidence from that. Unfortunately, T20 game is tough at times and we were outplayed. Gill played a fantastic innings, and unfortunately, we couldn’t execute through the night, which happens in T20 cricket,” said Boucher in the post-match press conference.

Boucher also expressed happiness with impressive form of young batters like Varma and Nehal Wadhera in the tournament. “With the batting, Nehal been a great find, Tilak’s been a great find. They’ve had some influential innings through the season. On paper and form-wise, our batting looks really strong. The guys are beginning to understand their roles within the team, so I’m very happy with the batting.” IANS

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