Mumbai: Rohit Sharma He has been in the news more for his fitness than his batting in IPL 2026. Plagued by a recurrence of an old hamstring injury, the 39-year-old batsman has played eight matches for the team. Mumbai IndiansIn which he has scored 283 runs at an average of 40.42 with a strike rate of 160.70. The injury forced the former India captain to miss a few matches, and since his return, he has only featured as an ‘impact player’ for MI. Amid concerns about his fitness, Rohit was included in India’s ODI squad for the three-match series in Afghanistan in June, but with a condition ‘subject to fitness’. However, ahead of his team’s IPL-2026 final match against Rajasthan Royals at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday, MI head coach Mahila Jayawardene has insisted that “Rohit is 100% fit.” “I think even before he got injured, we used him (Rohit) in a couple of games. We feel that in some games he was affected (used as an impact player), as I said. It is purely on the team combination and the people we want on the field. He is set and Rohit feels that he is a team player who is essential for Mumbai Indians, we gave him time to recover from that field. Given because of what we have done in the past,” Jayawardene said at the pre-match press conference here on Saturday.“It’s just a team combination and it has nothing to do with it. I hope whatever talks are going on or whatever is happening outside that bubble doesn’t affect it,” the former Sri Lankan captain added.Jayawardene revealed that fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah, who endured an ordinary IPL 2026 – taking just four wickets at just 102.00 at an economy rate of 8.36 in 13 matches – played in the 2026 T20 World Cup “with a niggle”, which meant he was allowed to make that much “over”. “In the first four or five games, his velocity dropped off.” Incredibly, despite the injury, Bumrah took 14 wickets @ 12.42 in eight matches, at an economy rate of 6.21, to play an outstanding role in India’s victory in the tournament. Asked if fatigue after a tough T20 World Cup campaign played a role in dampening Bumrah’s performance for MI in the IPL, Jayawardene replied, “Yes, I think (Bumrah’s performance in the IPL) is a combination of things. I think even coming back from the World Cup, he had a little bit of a rub in the World Cup with whom he played the World Cup.” So, we gave him proper rest to come back. So, the first four or five games, it was a gradual build for him to get over that concussion. So, you can see that this caused the speed to drop. And then, now he’s back on track. He has been good in the last four or five matches. But obviously, when you’re going through something like that, you lose a little bit of the finesse of the execution and all because you’re fighting something else. But I think health-wise, it’s 100 percent unfortunate that the season is over for us.”Jayawardene also pointed out that teams played Bumrah cautiously, which meant MI “were not able to create pressure around him.” However, he said Bumrah would “come back stronger” from this low phase. “And I think teams didn’t take too many risks against him in certain situations. They played him out because we weren’t able to create pressure around him and in terms of the other bowlers not being able to create the pressure that we needed. So, tactically, teams have played it differently. So, like I said, I can’t say it’s just one thing. There was quite a collection of things. But I don’t worry about bums. I think he is in good spirits. And he will come back stronger,” asserted the MI head coach.Jayawardene admitted that it hasn’t been an easy season for MI captain Hardik Pandya, who has missed a few matches due to back problems, injuries, and his side’s back-to-back defeats. Hardik’s frustration came to the fore when he smashed the stumps in anger at a potential catch in the last game, when the ball fell between Deepak Chahar and Robin Munns. “I think in that situation, obviously, it’s frustrating for any bowler. I mean, you can’t read too much into it. But yes, he had the same frustration on the field. We were also in the dugout because it was an important opportunity in that situation because I think Rowman (Powell) was scoring about 8 or 10 runs at that point. So, that would have created a bit more pressure on that wicket. And if they had just one or two batsmen left, we could have made something. But overall, I think it’s tough not just for Hardik, but for all of us to go through a season where we know we have the talent, we have the squad, but we haven’t been able to perform and perform to the best of our ability. And we have done well in some areas and not so well in other areas. So, it’s a constant disappointment. So, it’s across the squad, it’s across the franchise.“So, that’s something we need to understand. And like I said, we regroup, review and discuss what went wrong and all that. But that’s something for us to think about after the season, but not now,” Jayawardene explained.Asked about their conversation in a situation in which MI’s leading bowler Bumrah, troubled by a niggle, is enduring an unusual phase of poor form, Jayawardene said, “Yeah, so it was a good conversation, and Bum is very experienced now. I think he also knew, so it was a collective conversation with his training staff as well, like where we push him and how, because of workload management, how much he could bowl in the nets during preparation. So initially we tried to strategically catch him in situations so that he is not under too much pressure, but being a lead bowler he is always under pressure.But we used it in different ways this season so it gives him a little more freedom, but he understands it. He comes back and smiles and says, of course it worked. Let’s try something different. So it was a good conversation. I think we all learn from these types of seasons and manage them all. But one thing’s for sure, there’s no doubt that he put in those six or eight weeks to get back to where he needs to be. I mean, the last few games, he’s been on top. He was again bowling at 140-142 kmph, he was nailing the yorkers. He had some problems with his run-up, purely because it was with the niggle he had. If you remember, he was hitting some nine balls this season. It has to do with construction. So that’s something he went back to and worked on, like every time we had long breaks, he was working on it. So I can’t take anything away from his work and what he puts on the field. It’s just that it didn’t happen on the field. But we have had a good discussion and we know what we need to do,” Jayawardene explained.“We tried, it didn’t work, but we just need to move on,” Mahila concluded.
