Mumbai Indians (MI) head coach Mahela Jayawardena defended his team's decision to not send in-form Ishan Kishan for the super-over against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) after the left-hander had played a magnificent knock to push the game to a tie. 

Chasing the massive 202-run target in Dubai in Match 10 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 on Monday (September 29), MI were 78/4 in the 12th over when youngster Kishan (99) was joined by experienced batsman Kieron Pollard (60*). 

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They combined for an outstanding fifth-wicket stand of 117 runs to take the game to the super-over, where MI send Pollard and another power-hitter Hardik Pandya, with skipper Rohit Sharma following suit at No.3. 

However, they could together only manage 7 runs off RCB's impressive quick Navdeep Saini, which later opposition batsmen made a comfortable feast of. The loss raised question marks as to why didn't MI resend Kishan when he was hitting the ball well. 

Jayawardena, speaking at the post-match press conference, informed that the player had completely drained out by the end of his knock. 

"If anyone could see, he (Kishan) was very tired at that moment and we were thinking that we probably need a couple of fresh guys who can go and hit the ball," the coach said. 

"It is quite easy to say in hindsight this and that, but Polly (Pollard) and Hardik had done the job in the past in those Super Overs, two experienced guys who are capable of doing that."

"So you take a chance on these calls and it could have gone either way. If we had 10-12 runs anything could have happened," he added. 

At the post-match presentation ceremony, Rohit stressed much the same. 

"He (Kishan) was drained out and was not comfortable. We thought we could send him in but he was not feeling fresh and Hardik is somebody we trust hitting the long-balls but it is not coming off," the skipper said. 

Even for a bowler of Jasprit Bumrah's class, said Jayawardena, 7 runs were too less to defend, especially against batsmen of highest quality in AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli. 

"In the Super Over, we had three dots, so that's a killer for you because we lost a wicket and then we had a couple of more dots."

"We needed to make sure that we played some smart shots, get that early boundary away, which we couldn't, we had one, but a couple of boundaries would have been really handy especially when Booms (Bumrah) comes to bowl."

"Ab (De Villiers) and Booms is a great tussle, they went at each other, a bit of a boxing game. We probably didn't have enough runs for Booms to defend but we were still very close."

Despite the result, Kishan's innings in an extremely difficult situation against an attack filled with five international bowlers, was certainly commendable. 

"During the middle period, we just wanted to make sure that he bats through the innings," said Jayawardena. 

"We knew that he could put their bowling under pressure, so the message for him was to take it deep, because we had lost a few wickets, so he did that brilliantly and took his chance, played some really good shots."

"It was a brilliant partnership between him and Polly and (they) almost got us home," he added. 

(Inputs from PTI)