There is no Rohit Sharma once again for the Mumbai Indians as they face Sunrisers Hyderabad in the 2026 Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Wankhede Stadium. The 38-year-old last played in April 12 against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru at home and had limped off after facing 13 deliveries with a hamstring issue.
“Rohit’s going to take a couple of more games,” said Pandya at the toss ahead of the match against SRH, which he won and chose to bat first. “He’s been trying, it’s not up to exactly where he would want, so not available for the team.”
He was batting on 19 off 13 balls when he limped off the field in MI’s chase of a mammoth target of 241 against RCB on April 12. MI went on to lose the match by 18 runs. He seemed to be fine for much of the game and fielded for the entirety of the RCB innings. He was running normally for the first four overs of the MI chase. The 38-year-old started limping while running a leg bye off the fourth ball of the fifth over. He was looking just as ginger taking a single next ball and received some treatment before the start of the next over. Despite that, Rohit seemed to be in trouble as he took strike off the first ball and then went off the field after blocking out the second.
Rohit was replaced by South African veteran Quinton de Kock at the top of the order for Mumbai Indians in their next match against Punjab Kings and the latter started off by scoring a century in his first match back with the franchise. However, he then failed to have too much of an impact with the bat in the two subsequent matches that they played before Thursday’s game against SRH.
Rohit missed MI’s previous match against Chennai Super Kings. That, and the absence of MS Dhoni for CSK, made it the first match between the two sides without the two players since 2011. Both Rohit and Dhoni have led the franchise to five IPL title victories, with MI’s last victory coming in 2020 and CSK’s last win coming in 2023.
