“You could be Rohit Sharma or Suryakumar Yadav, at least respect…”: Virender Sehwag slams Mumbai Indian duo

Former India opener Virender Sehwag has criticized Mumbai Indians (MI) batting duo Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav for taking too long to prepare and then surrendering their wicket without making any significant contribution in the IPL 2024 match against Kolkata Knight Riders. In a rain-affected encounter that was reduced to a 16-over game between the two historic IPL powerhouses on Saturday, Rohit scored 19 off 24 while managing to register 11 off 14 after MI started their chase of 158 strongly with Ishan Kishan giving the side a good start with their 40 off 22 balls.

“Whoever bowls well, just throw him out. If two wickets hadn’t fallen, Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav could have finished the match earlier. Vaibhav Arora, Mitchell Starc, Andre Russell and Harshit Rana had to bowl anyway; if they played spinners and didn’t lose wickets, they would have won the game. You can’t have an ego when you go out to bat or punish missed deliveries,” Sehwag said on Cricbuzz.

Two early wickets in the first innings saw KKR struggle early in the game. Mumbai’s bowling attack faltered as the game progressed, with Venkatesh Iyer being the main man with the bat. Nitish Rana, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh and Ramandeep Singh made small but explosive contributions to take Kolkata’s score to 157/7.

In reply, Tilak Varma’s 32 runs in 17 balls went in vain as there were no real contributions from the middle order with Hardik Pandya, Tim David and Nehal Wadhera all combining for five runs. Naman Dhir’s 17 runs off 6 balls gave fans a glimmer of hope but it was not enough as MI could only score 139 in the chase.

“Naman Dhir came straight at the end and hit two sixes and a four; if Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav were set at that time, they would have hit 5 balls for boundaries. You could be Rohit Sharma or Suryakumar Yadav, but at least respect the delivery if you can’t respect the bowler. The ball Rohit Sharma got out was not a weak ball. No doubt, Rohit and Suryakumar are great players, but that doesn’t mean you should hit the good deliveries too,” Sehwag concluded.

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