Why is Rohit Sharma not playing today’s IPL 2023 match?

Mumbai Indians (MI) suffered an unfortunate blow ahead of their IPL 2023 match against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) as their captain Rohit Sharma missed out on the contest on Sunday (April 16).

He played an instrumental role in their victory in the previous match against Delhi Capitals, which was their maiden win of the season after two successive defeats. Rohit Sharma won the Player of the Match award for his match-winning knock of 65 off 45 balls.

Suryakumar Yadav will stand in as captain in his absence for MI against the KKR side. He revealed that Rohit Sharma was missing out due to a stomach bug issue. On the reason behind Rohit's absence, Suryakumar Yadav said:

"He's got a stomach bug. (Plans for today) Same aggression, same passion."

The flamboyant batter won the toss and opted to bowl first in the contest. He reasoned that the pitch was dry and would settle down as the game progressed and get better at batting in the second innings.

"We'd love to bowl first. The wicket looks a little dry and there's history that later on it settles a little bit and will come onto the bat nicely, " said Surya.

Speaking about MI's ESA day initiative for girls, he added:

"A special day in front of all these young girls and let's put on a show."

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MI Playing XI

Cameron Green, Ishan Kishan (wk), Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav (c), Tim David, Nehal Wadhera, Arjun Tendulkar, Hrithik Shokee, Duan Jansen, Piyush Chawla, Riley Meredith

MI Impact substitutes: Rohit Sharma, Ramandeep Singh, Arshad Khan, Vishnu Vinod, Kumar Kartikeya

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KKR Playing XI:

Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Narayan Jagadeesan, Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana (c), Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakaravarthy

KKR Impact substitutes: Mandeep Singh, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, David Wiese