NEW DELHI, March 30 (Reuters) - A day after fellow veteran Virat Kohli showed age is just a number, Mumbai Indians opener Rohit Sharma produced a match-defining half-century against Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday to underline that his appetite for runs remains as strong as ever.
Rohit, who turns 39 next month, led Mumbai to five Indian Premier League titles before Hardik Pandya replaced him as captain ahead of the 2024 season.
Like 37-year-old Kohli, Rohit restricts his India duties to the 50-overs format but he has begun the elite Twenty20 tournament intent on proving he is still very much a match-winner.
"He's freed himself up," coach Mahela Jayawardene said after Rohit's 78 off 38 balls helped Mumbai chase down 221 in a six-wicket victory in their tournament opener at home.
"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," added the former Sri Lanka captain.
"You practise 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.
"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."
Rohit, whose last competitive outing was in India's home one-day series against New Zealand in January, returned for the new IPL season looking leaner and fitter.
He joined the Mumbai camp early and played plenty of practice matches before going on to register his 50th 50-plus score in the IPL on Sunday.
"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," Jayawardene said.
On Saturday, Kohli smashed an unbeaten half-century to anchor defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru to a commanding victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad.
(Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; editing by Peter Rutherford)
