'Mental strain of international captaincy' - Graeme Smith on Rohit Sharma's struggles in IPL 2022

Former South African captain Graeme Smith reckons that Rohit Sharma’s international leadership roles seem to have taken a toll on him mentally following his recent struggles in the IPL. The 34-year-old was recently made the Indian captain across all formats and so far, it has been a brilliant start to his captaincy career in international cricket. However, Rohit has scored just 108 runs so far in the five innings he has played in this IPL and his lack of form has affected the Mumbai Indians considerably with four losses at the start of their campaign.

The injury to Suryakumar Yadav did not help the franchise in the first two games either. However, the major worries relate to their bowling. Daniel Sams conceded 35 off a single over courtesy of an assault from Pat Cummins while Tymal Mills has been on and off so far. Rohit has been deemed as one of the modern-day batting legends, with some extraordinary numbers in international cricket in the last few years, and Smith has suggested Rohit to lead the team’s fightback from the front.

When Rohit Sharma is scoring runs, MI are going to win more: Graeme Smith

Smith mentioned that Mumbai Indians tend to win more games when Rohit provides a good start to the franchise and wondered if the international captaincy responsibilities had taken a toll on him mentally. He noted that Mumbai Indians possess a strong batting line-up and felt that they will be hard to stop once the batters starts clicking.

“Rohit is the energy at the top of the order. Gets them off to a start, sets up the game that allows everyone else to play. When he is scoring runs MI are going to win a lot of the time. This is the first tournament he is captaining MI since becoming India’s white-ball captain. Does that mental strain take a toll in the IPL? It’s something to consider,” Smith was quoted as saying by cricket.com

“He’s just such a key player. If you look at the line-up, Rohit, an outstanding player, hasn’t found form. You’ve got Ishan Kishan, and Suryakumar Yadav injured for a couple of games. He has now come in and is looking good and then Pollard as the power finisher. You’ve got Brevis there but he’s a young man. That’s a very strong batting line-up,” he added.

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