Dale Steyn suggests Mumbai Indians should open the innings with Quinton de Kock and Australia batsman Chris Lynn and make the captain bat at No. 3.
Despite the fact that Mumbai Indians returned to winning ways with a victory over Rajasthan Royals in Delhi on Thursday, fast bowler Dale Steyn reckons the team can do with a bit of a batting shuffle to throw the opposition off-guard. The pacer Dale Steyn suggests MI should open the innings with Quinton de Kock and Australia batsman Chris Lynn and make Rohit Sharma bat at No. 3.
Dale Steyn: MI Can Experiment A Little By Pushing Rohit Sharma At No. 3
Chris Lynn played the first match of the season for MI, scoring 49 against Royal Challengers Bangalore opening the batting, but hasn’t gotten a game since Quinton de Kock returned from the second match. Rohit Sharma on the other hand has got starts, scoring 43, 32, 44, 63, and 14 in the five matches played so far.
“I like Rohit as an opening batter but you could throw a real spanner in the works by opening with QDK (Quinton de Kock) and Chris Lynn and push Rohit at 3 and SKY (Suryakumar Yadav) at 4,” said Dale Steyn on ESPNCricinfo.
However, Dale Steyn feels MI can experiment a little dropping the skipper down to No. 3 and in form Suryakumar Yadav in at No. 4. Notably, Rohit Sharma’s MI have failed to put up a total of more than 160 runs in their first 5 matches of the IPL 2021 season.
Playing on the slow and tricky wickets of Chennai, Mumbai Indians have batted first on all 5 occasions and have managed to win two of them. In their match against Delhi Capitals, Mumbai failed to defend 137 and then failed to defend 131 against Punjab Kings. The middle-order consisting of Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, and Kieron Pollard are yet to score big.
Dale Steyn: Ishan Kishan’s Form Cause Of Worry
Dale Steyn expressed concern over the form of MI batsman Ishan Kishan, who hasn’t quite got going in IPL 2021. Contrary to IPL 2020, where Ishan Kishan scored 516 from 14 matches, he has produced innings of 28, 1, 12, 26, and 6. Dale Steyn believes the youngster has failed to reproduce his form from the last season while also speaking about the likes of Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard as MI is fielding 3 overseas players nowadays.
“It (Ishan Kishan’s form) is a cause of worry. They have played some games now, they have given him the opportunity to get going, he hasn’t shown the same form as last year. And there’s an option because they have only been playing three overseas pros for the last couple of games,” Dale Steyn pointed out.
“It just extends their batting a little bit. We have seen them struggle in their middle order with Hardik, Krunal and Kieron (Pollard). Kieron has done OK but Hardik hasn’t just pitched up yet.”
Ishan Kishan was dropped from the match against the Royal at Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium. Ishan Kishan played in the first 5 matches of the 5-time champions and scored 73 runs at an average of 14.60 and strike rate of 82.95 on slow Chennai pitches.
Brief Scores: Mumbai Indians: 172-3 (Quinton de Kock 70*, Krunal Pandya 39; Chris Morris 2-33 ) beat Rajasthan Royals: 171/4 (Sanju Samson 42, Jos Buttler 41; Rahul Chahar 2-33) by 7 wickets.
