Sanjay Manjrekar fires bold attack at Rohit Sharma and ‘senior players’ ahead of IPL 2026 playoffs

Former Team India batter Sanjay Manjrekar criticized Rohit Sharma and other senior players for spending too many balls in the initial stages of their innings before exploding amid the ongoing IPL 2026. Manjrekar pointed to Rohit’s latest innings in the Mumbai Indians’ (MI) previous outing against the Punjab Kings (PBKS) as a case in point.

Despite MI chasing 201 for victory, the veteran batter scored only 26 off his 25 balls before being dismissed. Fortunately, his poor innings did not impact the side negatively as they completed the run chase in 19.5 overs.

Talking about Rohit Sharma’s slow-paced start to his innings, Manjrekar said on Sportstar:

“When you bat for about 20-22 balls and score at a strike rate of 100, you actually seal the fate for your team. You put your team in a losing position, and that is something that tends to happen with senior players who’ve had tremendous success over the years.

He continued:

“They feel that a big turning point will come during the course of the innings. You won’t have a young player hanging around for 20-25 balls at run-a-ball thinking that I’ll explode a little later. And you can see when he’s trying to up the ante, he tends to get out, so that’s why he doesn’t get the 50s and 100s.”

Despite his lackluster display against PBKS, Rohit boasts impressive numbers in IPL 2026 with 268 runs at an average of 44.66 and a strike rate of 164.41 in seven matches.

“The hundreds have stopped coming for Rohit Sharma” – Sanjay Manjrekar

Sanjay Manjrekar further claimed that three-figure scores have become a thing of the past for Rohit Sharma, even in white-ball cricket. The 39-year-old hasn’t scored an IPL century since 2024 and has scored only four ODI tons since 2021.

“The hundreds have stopped coming for Rohit Sharma, even in white-ball cricket. He had one against England, where he wanted to prove to the world that he could still get a century at the 50-over level. But to get those big 70, 80, 100 scores, you’ve got to have a lot of things going for yourself,” said Manjrekar (via the aforementioned source).

He concluded:

“So when you look at Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli in isolation, you feel they’ve done well, but look at the others who have the same kind of opportunity batting at the top of the order in the first six overs, where you have a license to succeed.”

Rohit will be in action when MI take on the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in their penultimate game of the season, having already been eliminated from playoff contention.