Former India international Sanjay Manjrekar said that Rohit Sharma does not put up as many big scores as he used to, noting that “the hundreds have stopped coming” even in white-ball cricket for the former India captain.
Manjrekar mentioned Mumbai Indians’ last outing where Tilak Varma’s 75 not out from 33 balls helped it chase down 200 against Punjab Kings in Dharamsala. Rohit scored a 26-ball 25 before being castled by Yuzvendra Chahal, an innings he described as “something that tends to happen with senior players who’ve had tremendous success over the years.”
“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,” Manjrekar said on Sportstar’sInsight Edge podcast.
“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” Manjrekar said.
He noted that the bigger scores have dwindled for the 39-year-old, saying, “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.
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“You’ve got to be in the prime of your batting ability, hand-eye coordination has to be brilliant. If you want to go from the fourth to the fifth gear, it should happen seamlessly, which is happening with a lot of other openers. 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.”
Published on May 20, 2026