Following his injury during a training session on Tuesday, Indian cricketer Rohit Sharma is sitting out of Mumbai Indians’ home against Kings XI Punjab on Wednesday, 10 April.
Kieron Pollard is leading the team in Rohit’s absence and walked out at the toss to join Kings XI Punjab skipper Ravi Ashwin.
The West Indian won the toss and elected to bowl first.
Rohit is missing an IPL game for the first time in the last 11 seasons during which he had played for the now defunct Deccan Chargers and then his current team Mumbai Indians.
"Rohit Sharma had suffered right leg muscle spasm yesterday during training. Rohit has recovered significantly in past 24 hours. As a precautionary measure, Mumbai Indians management has decided to rest Rohit for one match vs KXIP," MI said in a statement.
"Rohit is fine but as a precautionary measure we have decided to give him as a rest," stand-in captain Kieron Pollard said.
With MI playing three games in the next eight days, the Indian team management will keep a tab on his injury management.
Rohit is the second most important batsman after Virat Kohli in the Indian team and coach Ravi Shastri and physio Patrick Farhart will keep a keen eye on his recovery. It is expected that Farhart will be co-ordinating with MI Physio Nitin Patel on his injury management programme as it is the case with all centrally-contracted players in the league.
Local boy Siddhesh Lad will be replacing the skipper in the Mumbai squad while Punjab too have made a few changes. Mayank Agarwal’s finger injury is still a concern and he’s being replaced by Karun Nair while Mujeeb UR Rahman makes way for Hardus Viljoen.
Teams
Mumbai Indians: Kieron Pollard (c), Quinton de Kock, Suryakumar, Siddhesh Lad, Krunal Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Rahul Chahar, Alzarri Joseph, Jason Behrendorff and Jasprit Bumrah.
Kings XI Punjab: Ravichandran Ashwin (C), Lokesh Rahul, Chris Gayle, Karun Nair, Sarfaraz Khan, David Miller, Mandeep Singh, Sam Curran, Hardus Viljoen, Mohammed Shami and Ankit Rajpoot.
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