Are Mumbai Indians not using Sherfane Rutherford properly in IPL 2026?
Sherfane Rutherford was traded to Mumbai Indians by GT in IPL 2026.
Even though, they won their previous game, Mumbai Indians (MI) have had a tough start in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026. They started the tournament with a victory against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), but then lost four games in a row.
However, they finally registered a victory in the previous game against Gujarat Titans (GT). With this, they have now won two games out of six and take the seventh spot in the points table. One of the key players for them this season has been Sherfane Rutherford, who has featured in all six encounters.
He has looked decent with the bat, but hasn’t batted to his full potential. This has made many blame Mumbai Indians management for not utilising him to his full power.
How MI have failed to utilise Sherfane Rutherford properly?
Notably, the 27-year-old is a middle-order batsman for West Indies. Having a strike rate of over 148 in 53 T20Is, he has done a great job for his national team.
Last year, he played for Gujarat Titans (GT) in middle-order, smacking 291 runs in 13 matches at a stunning strike rate of 157.29. He also plays at the same position in franchise leagues like SA20 and the Caribbean Premier League (CPL).
Despite this fact, MI have dropped him down the order at the number seven. Hence, he has not managed to get enough deliveries to showcase his batting might.
Moreover, Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav have struggled to score runs in the middle-order. They are finding it hard to clear boundaries and have batted at a lower strike rate. Since they waste a lot of deliveries in the middle overs, Rutherford is not able to face enough deliveries to utilise his power-hitting ability.
He is the best finisher that MI have in their squad but they have not managed to provide him his best batting slot. For instance, in the clash against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), MI suffered a mini-batting collapse in the middle-order while chasing 241 runs.
They struggled at 154/5 in the 16th over. Slamming unbeaten 71 runs off 31 deliveries with nine sixes, Rutherford took the scoreboard to 222/5, decreasing the loss-margin to just 18 runs. He was unbeaten till the end and if he had gotten a few more deliveries, he would have taken his team to win.
Sherfane Rutherford is part of which team in IPL 2026?
Rutherford is part of Mumbai Indians in IPL 2026.
How many games have MI won in IPL 2026 so far?
MI have won two games and lost four out of six.
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Vikas Singh Derek is a core cricket-lover since childhood and has always followed the sport both in his personal and professional life. He started his school life by watching cricket at home with family. Later, he played cricket on the field at local clubs during college. After his Master's in Journalism from Mumbai, he followed his passion by covering cricket news across various digital media. Since 2015, he has been an aspiring sports journalist and cricket content writer with over 50K+ articles.