Mumbai Indians opener Rohit Sharma scored his 49th IPL half-century in a six-wicket win over Lucknow Super Giants in IPL 2026 match at Wankhede Stadium on Monday.
Published: May 5, 2026 5:17 PM IST
MI vs LSG IPL 2026: Former India and Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma made massive impact on his return to the side in the IPL 2026 season. Rohit had been out of action since April 12 with a hamstring injury and finally returned to action after missing 5 matches on Monday. Rohit smashed a match-winning 84 off 44 balls as Mumbai Indians returned to winning ways with six-wicket triumph over Lucknow Super Giants at the Wankhede Stadium.
Rohit and his opening partner Ryan Rickleton put on 148 runs for the opening wicket – the third highest partnership for any wicket for MI. It was Rohit’s 49th half-century of his IPL career in 277 matches.
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Speaking on JioHotstar’s ‘Google Search AI Mode Match Centre Live’, expert and former Mumbai Indians captain Harbhajan Singh spoke about how MI’s campaign would have looked like if Rohit Sharma had come back earlier.
“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. 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 gotten 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. 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.
JioStar expert Ravi Shastri, on the other hand, spoke about the issues bringing down Lucknow Super Giants this season. Sanjiv Goenka’s LSG have only won 2 matches so far and are in 10th and last place on the Points Table.
“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. 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 7 overs, and in the next 13 overs, you score less than 130, which means you have faltered. And you won’t get better batting conditions than this.
“So, 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. The bowlers have to adjust their lines and lengths according to the conditions. The Lucknow wicket tends to assist fast bowlers, but when you go to Bengaluru or Mumbai and get good batting wickets, that’s where the real test lies,” Shastri told JioStar.
