Mystery Solved? Fans believe Jonny Bairstow is Jitendra Bhatawadekar from Rohit Sharma’s Dream11 Promo!

After progressing to Qualifier 2, Mumbai Indians (MI) opener and former skipper Rohit Sharma was in the headlines for his mind-blowing innings and for an old video where he mentioned the name Jitendra Bhatawadekar.

The interesting fact for which cricket fans are starting to revisit video is the short form of Jitendra Bhatawadekar, which is J.B.; that's similar to Jonny Bairstow's initial.

The promotion video where Rohit picked Jitendra Bhatawadekar was shot before the beginning of IPL 2025. To make this situation clouded with more speculations or amazements, after their successful match against Gujarat Titans (GT) at the Eliminator, Mumbai Indians from there shared a post with a picture and captain where we can see Rohit Sharma and Jonny Bairstow stepping into the field together, and the caption said, 'Jitendra Bhatawadekar' instead of Bairstow, with a caption 'IYKYK' (If You Know You Know).

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Against Gujarat Titans in the Eliminator match, Jonny Bairstow combined with Rohit Sharma to stitch an 84-run partnership in the opening wicket. While the English batter departed for 47 off 22, Rohit went strong and got 81 runs, which helped Mumbai Indians to post a mammoth 228 in the first innings. Sai Sudharsan tried to lead Gujarat to a heroic win, but they eventually fell short by 20 runs. 

Here is the social media post which amazed cricket fans

The source of the 'mystery'

Before the beginning of the ongoing IPL, Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav featured in a Dream11 promotion video with two Bollywood stars, Ranbir Singh and Aamir Khan. Sharma and Singh were facing challenges from Yadav and Khan to build their dream 11. So, as per the rules, they started to pick their favorite cricketers simultaneously. 

At that moment, Rohit picked up Jitendra Bhatawadekar. But who is he? Later, Sharma himself confessed that he had no idea what he was talking about and took a random name to confuse their opponent. As of now, there is no player named Jitendra Bhatawadekar in the cricket circuit. 

Watch the promo video here