He's batting well in nets: Jayawardene on Rohit Sharma's availability against RCB clash

Rohit Sharma played the first three games for the five-time champions in the IPL 2025, scoring 13 (against Chennai Super Kings), 8 (against Gujarat Titans), and 0 (against Kolkata Knight Riders) respectively before missing the franchise's previous encounter, which was played against Lucknow Sper Giants (LSG) at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow.

"Ro [Rohit] looks good, he's going to bat today as well. Rohit had an unfortunate impact on his leg while batting so he felt uncomfortable. We were travelling yesterday. He'll have a hit today, and then we will do an assessment on that," Mahela Jayawardene said in the pre-match press conference as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.

"He had a couple of hits, he's batting well in the nets. If you're telling me every two innings to look at someone's performance, it's a bit unfair. My memory of his last innings was the Champions Trophy-winning knock. So we have to give and back the experienced guys, and them coming to the party. We've always, as Mumbai, backed the core group to deliver for us so we're going to do that. It was unfortunate that he got hit in the nets and hopefully he'll be 100% and that's how we will continue to back the guys to get the results for us," Jayawardene said when asked about Rohit's form.

The Mumbai-based franchise is currently placed at the eighth spot in the IPL 2025 points table, with just one win (two points) in the four games they have faced in the competition so far. Their fifth clash of the tournament will be against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, which will be played at the iconic Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Monday.

Squads:

Mumbai Indians: Will Jacks, Ryan Rickelton (wk), Naman Dhir, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya (c), Mitchell Santner, Raj Bawa, Deepak Chahar, Ashwani Kumar, Vignesh Puthur, Jasprit Bumrah, Corbin Bosch, Robin Minz, Satyanarayana Raju, Karn Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Trent Boult, Reece Topley, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Krishnan Shrijith, Arjun Tendulkar, Bevon Jacobs.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Philip Salt, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar(c), Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Krunal Pandya, Tim David, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Yash Dayal, Rasikh Dar Salam, Suyash Sharma, Manoj Bhandage, Jacob Bethell, Swapnil Singh, Abhinandan Singh, Romario Shepherd, Lungi Ngidi, Nuwan Thushara, Mohit Rathee, Swastik Chikara.