Need to have guys who bowl and have speed: MI coach explains why Rohit Sharma is playing as an 'impact sub'

Rohit Sharma has been playing as an ' impact sub' for Mumbai Indians in this season's IPL. The decision was taken as the team felt the need to have players who could bowl and be more agile on the field, MI head coach Mahela Jayawardene said on Monday. He added that the Indian Test and ODI skipper was also carrying a niggle from India's victorious campaign in Champions Trophy.

"No, it wasn't at the start. Obviously, Ro (Rohit) was on the field in some of the games," Jayawardene said during MI's training session when asked if it was the plan since the beginning to the season.

"But if you look at the composition of the team, most of the guys are doing dual roles; most of them are bowling. At the same time, some of the venues need boundary runners, you need guys with speed and all that so that also comes into play. Ro was also nursing a niggle from the Champions Trophy so we wanted to make sure that we don't push him too hard, and we have managed that while (his) batting is the most important thing," he added.

The head coach was pleased by Sharma's contributions on and off the field.

"If you've seen, he's always been around in the dugout, or he goes in during timeouts, and there's a lot of communication that's been happening, so actively involved."

Jayawardene also acknowledged MI has been benefitted from Rohit and Ryan Rickelton finding success as an opening pair.

"For any team, the openers do play a very valuable part in establishing the innings and especially with the batting lineup that we have, the way we build when we get a good start, it always complements to that," he said.

"It's just that even though Ro, probably (in) the last few years, he hadn't (had) those big scores but he was trying to give us that impetus as well -- even though I was in the head coach, I was watching -- he used to get those quick 20s or 30s but couldn't convert."

About Jasprit Bumrah's comeback from an injury, Jayawardene said his bowling pace has shown an upward spike.

"He made a good recovery and it didn't take long for him to get into the stride as well. That's a good thing about Jasprit that he's got a lot of control, confidence in how he wants to go about and he gives us a completely different dimension to this attack," he said.

"He's fine, there's nothing wrong with him. We've monitored him, his pace is getting better and better, so execution is better, we saw that in the last game as well, he was quite aggressive and how he wanted to go about it," Jayawardene added.

The former Sri Lankan skipper added that playing two of their last three matches at home will help the team as they push for a final-four finish, but refused to see Tuesday's game against Gujarat Titans as a prelude to a knockout clash.

"When I saw the schedule, I knew that having to play your last two games out of the three at home obviously was a good thing. We were starting away from home, so we knew that might come into play, and it has come to play.

"I haven't thought about the playoffs. There are five (or) six teams with KKR winning yesterday (Sunday) as well, so there's different permutations, and I'm not going to even go through that, how everything's going to unfold," he said.