NEW DELHI: Mumbai Indians might not have been in such a precarious position as far as IPL playoffs qualification is concerned had former skipper Rohit Sharma recovered earlier from his hamstring injury, rued Harbhajan Singh.
Rohit returned to action following an injury-enforced layoff with a strokeful 84 in MI’s highest-ever successful run-chase in the IPL in pursuit of 229 when they beat Lucknow Super Giants by six wickets here on Monday.
The former Mumbai Indians’ skipper had missed in all five matches since leaving the field after suffering a hamstring injury while batting against Royal Challengers Bengaluru here on April 12.
“It’s important to be in the middle. You can do only so much sitting in the dugout. But you can make a difference by being in the middle, and Rohit Sharma did exactly that,” Harbhajan told JioHotstar.
“You needed that foundation to chase down that many runs and he didn’t just lay the foundation, but built a couple of floors on it as well, leaving very little for the rest to do. It would have been even better if he had got his hundred, but for the time he was there, he played exceptionally well."
“I wish his injury had healed a little earlier. Who knows, they might have won a game or two during that losing streak and would have still been alive in the competition?” the former India spinner added.
Harbhajan, who played for MI from the inaugural edition in 2008 to 2017, hoped the five-time champions would keep fighting hard in their remaining matches.
With three wins and seven defeats in 10 matches, MI only have six points and need to win each of their remaining four to remain alive.
“They will give themselves a chance if they win every game from here and get to 14 points. Who knows, if other teams start losing, there could be a net run-rate situation at 14 points, anything can happen,” Harbhajan said.
Meanwhile, former India head coach Ravi Shastri said LSG paid a price of being inconsistent.
“The problem with LSG is that when their bowling unit performs, the batters fail to back it up, and when the batters score runs, the bowlers go for plenty. There’s no consistency,” Shastri said.
“Six losses in a row can really dent a side’s confidence, and even in games where you are in a comfortable position, there are thoughts like, ‘Will we win, won’t we?’ You are 100 for one in 7 overs, and in the next 13 overs, you score less than 130, which means you have faltered.”
“You won’t get better batting conditions than this. They’ll have to sit down and think about what went wrong in the last three overs while batting, and how they can tighten up their bowling."