Muscle memory. It’s what kicks in when a batter who has spent years at the crease knows exactly how to react to a ball without having to think about it.
For Rohit Sharma, it kicks in when he sees a short ball and swivels his hips to pull it, a shot he has played countless times in his career. On this night, in the chase against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), the ball didn’t even come off the middle of the bat, but it didn’t matter. It still sailed over deep midwicket.It’s been ten months since Rohit last played a proper T20. Yet, in his first match of what is his 19th year in the IPL, he did not bat like someone out of touch. Rather, he just settled in and shifted into another plane. He stamped his authority from the get-go for Mumbai Indians (MI), first taking on Vaibhav Arora with a premeditated swing that sailed 87 metres over deep midwicket, before charging down to Blessing Muzarabani, making room and carving him cleanly over extra cover.
But it was the fifth over, against Varun Chakravarthy, that truly showcased Rohit’s command. He greeted Varun with a lofted inside-out cover drive on the first ball, then leaned into a tossed-up delivery just outside off and caressed the ball over the covers once more. Fourth ball of the over, he moved across slightly to get inside the line and flicked the ball neatly over backward square leg for another boundary. Varun, the smart operator, had been outsmarted. Rohit scored 15 off that over alone, remarkably overturning a long-standing pattern: prior to this match, he had managed just 48 runs off the 49 balls he had faced from Varun.
Rohit carried that authority into the next over – muscle memory again – as he punished Kartik Tyagi’s overpitched offcutter with an inside-out drive over extra cover for another six. By the end of the powerplay, he had raced to a 23-ball fifty – his fastest in the IPL – bring rousing applause from a home crowd that adores him. It was also the first time in IPL history that he had scored 50-plus runs within the powerplay.
These are shots Rohit has executed countless times over the years, yet, in previous seasons, till IPL 2024, it has sometimes felt like they were often tempered by a sense of restraint – perhaps due to captaincy responsibilities, the need to protect his wicket, or just the conventions of T20 cricket at the time. His overall strike rate has reflected this evolution: from 120.17 in 2022 and 132.8 in 2023 to 150 in 2024 and 149.28 in 2025.
“I think after so many years I’ve had him from day one of the camp, he played some really good match practice games. We had a lot of simulations for him, especially to get him going, and I was quite happy the way he was hitting the ball… I thought he batted brilliantly”
Mahela Jayawardene on Rohit Sharma
The strike-rate surge wasn’t something the management discussed with him, but this new, aggressive version of his game is natural evolution.
“Just him, he’s freed himself up,” Mahela Jayawardene, the MI coach said after the game. “He’s thinking much calmer, he’s not the leader, there’s less pressure on him. This happens – it happened to me as well in my last few years when I went and played franchise cricket.
“You practice less, but your memory – your muscle memory – it works. And you just go with the flow, you know, what the bowlers are trying to do. And once you’re in that mode, you have that freedom which we’ve noticed in Rohit in the last couple of years. And we encourage him to go and do that, and the rest of the team is backing him to do that and I’m quite happy about it.”
While Rohit has played competitive cricket in just one format this past year, most recently in the ODIs against New Zealand, his IPL preparation has been meticulous. Heading to the MI camp early this year, he spent long hours at the nets, facing team-mates including captain Hardik Pandya and a battery of fast bowlers. Training a day before the opener, he unfurled his big shots. He has also spent time away from international cricket to become a lot fitter.
“I think after so many years I’ve had him from day one of the camp, he played some really good match practice games,” Jayawardane said. “We had a lot of simulations for him, especially to get him going, and I was quite happy the way he was hitting the ball… I thought he batted brilliantly.”
Rohit unleashed shots all around the wicket. A defining moment came with a no-look inside-out six off Arora, when he sent a full toss outside off over the covers almost nonchalantly. By the end of his innings – a 38-ball 78 – he had peppered both sides of the wicket with multiple sixes. And all this happened at the Wankhede Stadium, a venue where he has now scored over 2500 runs in the IPL.
His India team-mate Virat Kohli – who has also appeared a refreshed version of himself since the last IPL season – has spoken about the power of muscle memory before. About knowing your game so well that execution becomes instinctive. Like Rohit, Kohli too began his 2026 campaign demonstrating that. The years of experience, preparation, and sheer instinct converging into pure, fun T20 batting.
