Former India spinner Harbhajan Singh believes Mumbai Indians could have been a contender for the IPL 2026 playoffs, had Rohit Sharma recovered earlier from his hamstring injury.
The former MI skipper returned from an injury layoff and immediately made impact by scoring 84 and starred in the team’s highest-ever successful run chase in the IPL in pursuit of 229, when they beat Lucknow Super Giants by six wickets on Monday.
Rohit had picked up the hamstring injury while batting against Royal Challengers Bengaluru on April 12, which resulted in him missing five matches for MI.
“It’s important to be in the middle. You can do only so much sitting in the dugout. But you can make a difference by being in the middle, and Rohit Sharma did exactly that,” Harbhajan told JioHotstar.
“You needed that foundation to chase down that many runs and he didn’t just lay the foundation, but built a couple of floors on it as well, leaving very little for the rest to do. It would have been even better if he had got his hundred, but for the time he was there, he played exceptionally well.”
“I wish his injury had healed a little earlier. Who knows, they might have won a game or two during that losing streak and would have still been alive in the competition?” Harbhajan also said.
Harbhajan, who played for Mumbai Indians from 2008 to 2017, said he hopes the team keeps fighting in their remaining matches. With just three wins and seven losses from 10 games, MI have only six points and now need to win all their remaining four matches to stay in the race.
“They will give themselves a chance if they win every game from here and get to 14 points. Who knows, if other teams start losing, there could be a net run-rate situation at 14 points, anything can happen,” Harbhajan said.
Meanwhile, former India head coach Ravi Shastri commenting on LSG’s performance this season said the Lucknow franchise has been inconsistent.
“The problem with LSG is that when their bowling unit performs, the batters fail to back it up, and when the batters score runs, the bowlers go for plenty. There’s no consistency,” Shastri said.
“Six losses in a row can really dent a side’s confidence, and even in games where you are in a comfortable position, there are thoughts like, ‘Will we win, won’t we?’ You are 100 for one in seven overs, and in the next 13 overs, you score less than 130, which means you have faltered.”
“You won’t get better batting conditions than this. They’ll have to sit down and think about what went wrong in the last three overs while batting, and how they can tighten up their bowling.”
