Mumbai Indians all-rounder (MI) Jayant Yadav while talking about the loss against Delhi Capitals (DC) in match 13 of IPL 2021 said that his side showed tremendous courage and fightback to drag the Rishabh Pant-led side into the final over in the chase.
Delhi Capitals defeated Mumbai Indians in their fourth match of IPL 14 at Chennai and moved to the second spot in the points tables.
Opting to bat Mumbai Indians went off the flyer and were cruising at 67 for 1 in the seventh over. However, Amit Mishra’s heroics saw Rohit Sharma-led side suffer a mini-collapse and were reduced from 67-2 to 84-6.
A decent knock of 23 runs with the bat by all-rounder Jayant Yadav helped MI make 137/9 against DC at Chennai.
Defending the target, MI bowlers showed great discipline and kept taking wickets at regular intervals but in the end, they didn’t have enough runs on the board as DC chased the target in the last over and registered their second consecutive win of the season.
IPL 2021: Rohit Sharma says not capitalizing on the start in the powerplay cost MI against DC
While talking about the loss at the virtual press conference, Jayant Yadav said that MI showed a lot of character to drag the match to the last over.
He added that in IPL players have to be on their toes and out of 25 squad members only 11 play so they buy into what the captain and team management wants from them.
“It was a tough wicket, we were 10-15 runs short of the par score, there was a lot of dew and we showed a lot of character to drag the match to the last over. I think IPL is a tournament where you need to be on your toes, there is a squad of 25 players but at the end of the day, only 11 come to the field.
“You have to buy into what the captain and management want from you. As I said IPL is a long tournament and you have to prepare accordingly,” Jayant Yadav said during the virtual press conference.
Replying to the question which read ‘how difficult it is to bowl with the wet ball,’ Jayant Yadav said that the ball did get swamped because of being in use for a long time.
However, he also acknowledged that it was the umpires' decision on whether the ball needed to be replaced during the game.
“I think it’s not up to us to change the ball. We can tell the umpires that the ball is wet and it is up to them whether they want to change the ball or not. Umpires need to see whether the ball is wet or not. In the match against Delhi, it did get quite wet. One ball was in continuous use for a long time so that’s why it was very wet.” he said.
Jayant Yadav while talking about living in bio-bubble thanked BCCI for organizing a marquee tournament during the tough times of COVID-19.
“Bubble life is something we need to get used to as professionals given the current situation of the pandemic. Our management has made bubble taking players into consideration, we have families around and we have them to give us company, at the end of the day we are professionals, big thanks to BCCI that the tournament is going on,” he concluded.
Following their second defeat in four games, Mumbai Indians have slipped to fourth place in the points table. The defending champions will now face Punjab Kings (PBKS) in their next match at Chennai on 23rd April.
(ANI inputs)
