Even though they haven’t been officially cleared to play in the Indian Premier League match between the Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings on Thursday, Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni batted together in the nets session in Mumbai on Wednesday while wearing the training uniforms of their respective franchisees.
The Wankhede Stadium will host the first leg of this year’s IPL “El Clasico” on Thursday. However, it is unclear whether the two major players in the renowned MI-CSK rivalry will be available for another match.
Rohit, who played in MI’s first four games, left the field ten days ago during the match against Royal Challengers Bengaluru due to a hamstring injury. Since then, he has been on a comeback trail.
However, Dhoni has not yet played in this IPL since he has been recovering from a calf strain that he developed just before the competition began late last month.
During the training session in Mumbai on Tuesday, the renowned CSK captain had a full tilt, taking wickets and then batting in the nets. He played for a very little period on Wednesday before taking a break and coming back for almost an hour to take on quick bowlers and throwdown specialists.
According to CSK bowling coach Eric Simons, Dhoni’s availability would solely depend on how “happy” the former captain and the team’s medical staff are. Dhoni had a mixed outing in which he missed connecting with a few, but he did connect with a couple that went sailing.
However, there were also some humorous moments on the field when Dhoni saw the AI-powered IPL robotic dog and played with it for a short while. He made an effort to get the dog to mimic his movements, but occasionally the robot was unable to do so.
Prior to his batting stint under lights, Rohit arrived at the Wankhede earlier in the day with his family. The former captain of the Mumbai Indians has been batting, according to the squad, but a final decision regarding his selection will be made on Thursday at the toss. Rohit appeared to be more interested in timing and placing the ball than hitting it, so it didn’t appear like he was experiencing any particular discomfort.
With the exception of an optional practice on Tuesday, MI’s only full-squad training session took place on Wednesday, when India T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav batted three times in the nets.
Suryakumar hasn’t been able to replicate the consistency he showed last season, when he scored 16 straight runs of at least 25 runs or more, save from a quiet half-century in an away encounter against Delhi Capitals.
