NEWS
Follow UsIndia vice-captain Rohit Sharma said that Hardik Pandya might start bowling again in a week after staying away from it in IPL 2021. Pandya had a lackluster season with the bat, scoring just 127 runs at an average of 14.11 and a strike rate of 113.39.
"In terms of his (Hardik) bowling, the physios, trainers are working on his bowling. He hasn't bowled a single ball yet. We wanted to take one match at a time and see where he stands," Rohit said after Mumbai Indians' last IPL game on Friday.
"He is getting better day by day. In the next week or so, he might be able to bowl, who knows? Only the doctors and physios will be able to give an update on that. Personally for him, he will not be happy with his batting but the team has confidence on his ability. I personally have confidence on his ability," he added.
Rohit was confident that the India players in the Mumbai Indians squad will find their form by the T20 World Cup irrespective of their run in the IPL 2021.
"I personally don't like to count too much into what has happened in the IPL and what is going to happen in T20 World Cup," Rohit said.
"T20 World Cup is a different ball game, franchise cricket is different. So you cannot really look too much into those aspects. Yes the form matters, but it's a different squad there and it's a different squad here. So you cannot really look too much into that."
Rohit praised Ishan Kishan (84 off 32 balls) and Suryakumar Yadav (82 off 40 ball) who took Mumbai to their highest ever IPL total of 235/9 against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
"You saw a couple of fine performances today from Surya and Ishan, but again, when you talk about the World Cup, there will be couple of practice games I believe guys can get back into their rhythm and see what we can do there."
The MI skipper felt that the COVID-19 enforced break affected their momentum as the holders slumped to three defeats in a row at the beginning of the UAE leg which dented their play-offs chances.
"We had won the trophy here (in the UAE) last year, so the conditions were not alien for us," he said.
"The thing was the momentum we had created with two back-to-back wins in Delhi, we wanted to continue that but unfortunately because of what was happening in the country (COVID-19 outbreak), there was a break."
"When we came here, some of our first XI players had a few injuries and missed a couple of games initially. Despite that, we should have done better, but we just didn't play as a team to start with, and then collectively as a group, we didn't come together. That was the main reason for not qualifying this year," Rohit said.