Rohit Sharma opens up on excluding Harbhajan Singh from the playing eleven

The Mumbai Indians had a near perfect season this year. Barring a last minute blip in the league stages when they lost two games in a row, everything else fell in place for the Mumbai camp almost perfectly. They ended up winning the championship for the third time in the history of the tournament. One of the key reasons for their success was the contributions made by all players. Skipper Rohit Sharma lauded the collective effort after the win.

The bench strength of the Mumbai Indians looked very strong as well. In the last league game of the season, they had fielded almost a side of players who had warmed up the bench in the season against the Kolkata Knight Riders. The benched team had won the match for them. It was certainly tough for the management to finalize the playing eleven before every game.

Some new names like Karn Sharma found themselves in the mix of things. On the other hand, others like Harbhajan Singh ended up being benched towards the end. The exclusion of Harbhajan Singh from the playing eleven raised a few eyebrows. Talking about the same, Rohit Sharma tried to justify the decision. As per the quotes in the DNA India, Rohit Sharma noted that the decision was purely based on tactical decisions.

“We’ve mentioned this previously. It was a tactical change, nothing related to performance and things like that. I don’t know why you’re asking this again,” Rohit Sharma quoted.

Decent numbers in favor of Harbhajan

Well, the justification could be rightly accepted for the exclusion of the star player. Because the veteran offie had been doing a decent job with the ball. He had scalped 8 wickets in the 11 matches that he played this season. He bowled with an economy of 6.48 in the season and the number stands out for the fact that he bowled in the powerplays on most occasions.