Rohit Sharma has won five IPL titles. He led Mumbai Indians to four of them. He has 10,000-plus T20 runs. He is, by almost every metric, one of the greatest T20 cricketers the game has produced. In IPL 2025, he spent significant portions of each match sitting in the dugout waiting for his team to finish bowling so he could walk out and bat.

That particular arrangement is over — by Rohit’s own reported insistence. And now, with IPL 2026 starting March 28, two of India’s most respected former players have publicly backed him on it.

“Logically, if you are fit, you should play the whole game and not be substituted. Especially when you are batting second, you shouldn’t come in as an impact player. An opener is not used to watching 20 overs of the match from the dugout,” Aakash Chopra told JioHotstar.

It is a point that sounds straightforward. The way it was violated for most of IPL 2025 — by one of cricket’s greatest-ever captains, at a franchise he built into the most successful in IPL history — is stranger than the verdict.

What Actually Happened in IPL 2025 — and Why It Matters

The Impact Player rule, introduced into the IPL in 2023, allows teams to substitute one player before or after an innings, effectively expanding the XI to 12 usable players across a match. Used imaginatively, it adds genuine tactical variety. Used as MI used it in 2025, it created one of cricket’s more surreal recurring images: Rohit Sharma, fit, padded up, walking to the crease having watched his team field for 20 overs from the bench.

The logic from MI’s coaching staff, under Mahela Jayawardene, was defensible on paper: deploy Rohit purely as a batting resource — his strongest asset — and use the fielding phases to play an extra specialist, typically a bowler, who would be removed once the innings ended and Rohit came in as the substitute. The strategy allowed MI to play an additional bowling option, which partially addressed their persistent problem of bowling depth.

The problem, as Chopra identifies precisely, is that this strategy treats the opening batting role as a feature that can be decoupled from match involvement — and that is not how opening batters work.

“Opening batters are used to staying on the field, preparing accordingly and then hitting the ground running. Rohit Sharma is the fittest, meanest and maybe the strongest at this point in time, so he should be on the ground for all 40 overs. That’s actually how Mumbai Indians will be able to make full use of Rohit Sharma,” Chopra said.

Rohit’s IPL 2025 numbers, taken in isolation, look reasonable: 240 runs across the season. But context matters. Dropped into match situations having not fielded, not been involved in the tactical dialogue of the innings, not physically warmed into match pace — the rhythm that comes from being part of the action for two hours before you bat — his performances lacked the command that defined his best IPL seasons. Some matches he came in to find the required run rate already steep. Others, he was removed again as the team shifted back to a bowling combination.

Reports from February confirmed what fans had suspected: Rohit personally informed MI management he would not accept the Impact Player arrangement in 2026. He wants to open the batting, field for 20 overs, and be available to contribute as a full participant throughout the match.

The Harbhajan Dimension: Leadership, Not Just Runs

Harbhajan Singh’s argument goes further than batting mechanics. Where Chopra makes the technical case — openers need match rhythm, full involvement is more productive than impact-player deployment — Harbhajan makes the leadership case, which is arguably more significant.

“Rohit Sharma has been used as the 12th man who just bats, but I feel that the kind of leader he has been, a player like him should be on the field. In tough matches, when you need to take certain calls, when a captain sometimes needs a shoulder to lean on, Rohit Sharma can do that for Hardik Pandya,” Harbhajan said.

This is the dimension that statistics cannot capture. Hardik Pandya is MI’s captain in IPL 2026, a position he has held since 2024 after Rohit stepped down. But captaincy, particularly in a format as rapid-fire as T20, is not a solo exercise. Decisions taken at the 8th over, when the pitch has changed character and the required run rate has shifted, are better when there is an experienced player at mid-on saying quietly, “this is what I’d do.” That player — five-time IPL champion, 37-cap India captain across all formats — is not available for that conversation when he is sitting in the dugout with his pads on.

The dynamic between Rohit and Hardik has been one of the subplots of Indian cricket since Hardik’s return to MI from Gujarat Titans in 2024. The relationship is not without complexity — Rohit led MI to titles Hardik helped win as an all-rounder, and handing over the captaincy to a player he has long treated as a younger brother has required adjustment from both men. But Harbhajan’s observation cuts through that context: whatever their history, a team is better when its most experienced player is part of every over, not arriving fresh for batting and leaving before the first fielder throws the ball.

The MI Squad That Makes the Full Rohit Case Even Stronger

Mumbai Indians’ 2026 squad, assembled after December’s mini-auction, is built around a core that makes Rohit’s full participation tactically viable — not just emotionally satisfying.

MI’s bowling attack — Bumrah, Boult, Hardik, Santner, with Deepak Chahar providing backup — is strong enough that the extra bowling specialist the Impact Player scheme bought them in 2025 is no longer necessary as a trade-off for fielding Rohit for all 40 overs. The case Chopra and Harbhajan make is now both technically and logistically sound.

Rohit’s most effective IPL seasons came when he was involved from over one — reading the pitch, watching how it played, adjusting his game plan between balls fielded at deep mid-wicket and deliveries faced at the crease. The Impact Player version of Rohit was a half-measure. The full version is what MI need if they are going to add a sixth title to the five already in their cabinet.

He knows it. Chopra knows it. Harbhajan knows it. Now it is MI’s call to make.