Rohit Sharma against RCB (Source:@SPORTYVISHAL/X.com)
Rohit Sharma, the former Mumbai Indians skipper was absent in the last game against LSG due to injury, and was not named in the playing XI for the RCB clash at the Wankhede too. However, he was included in the Impact Players list and was expected to come in the second half to bat, but MI decided to bring him at the end of 15th over of the first innings itself.
The Indian ODI and Test captain replaced youngster Vignesh Puthur who bowled just one over and took a wicket of Devdutt Padikkal as well. However, surprisingly, he did not get to bowl his remaining three overs as captain Hardik Pandya decided to use himself for four overs.
Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar Take RCB To A Strong Total vs RCB
Rohit Sharma has not been in great form in IPL 2025 so far, with just 21 runs in three innings before the RCB game. However, MI now need him to fire against RCB, as they have a massive target of 222 in front of them. For RCB, Virat Kohli set the tone with his 67 off 42 balls, he crossed the 13000-run mark in T20s as well, while the captain Rajat Patidar took forward the momentum with 64 from just 32 balls.
Devdutt Padikkal and Jitesh Sharma played handy cameos for RCB, while Hardik Pandya used seven bowlers to stem the run-flow. They now need to come up with a strong performance with the bat, and end notch up their second consecutive wins at the Wankhede this season.
 "Aashay Chopade")
