Mumbai Indians (MI) skipper Rohit Sharma on Saturday (9th April) talked about the loss his team suffered against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in Match 18 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022. Rohit accepted that the team knew that the target they set wasn’t going to be enough.
MI suffered their fourth consecutive loss of the IPL 15 after RCB pounded them by 7 wickets in Pune. Asked to bat first, the five-time champions went off the flyer as skipper Rohit Sharma (26) and Ishan Kishan (26) notched up a 50-run partnership for the 1st wicket.
However, after that, they suffered a batting collapse and were reduced to 79/6 in the 14th over. Suryakumar Yadav played the lone hand for his side. The right-hander hit a sensational 68* runs and helped his side post a fighting total of 151 runs on the board.
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Defending the target, MI managed to take only three wickets as Anuj Rawat (66) and Virat Kohli (48) put their team in a commanding position with their knocks. Dinesh Karthik (7*) and Glenn Maxwell (8*) then closed the game and won the match for their side with 9 balls to spare.
Speaking at the post-match presentation, Rohit Sharma revealed why they played only two overseas players. He expressed his disappointment on getting out after a start, saying that he wants to bat for as long as possible.
“(Two overseas players) Just the combination that we felt would be ideal on certain pitches and certain opposition. We wanted to strengthen our batting, unfortunately, we had few overseas guys who were unavailable, so we wanted to get the best from whatever we had. Just got 26, I wanted to bat as long as possible, but unfortunately, I got out at the wrong time,” Rohit Sharma said.
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Rohit remarked that losing wickets in the clusters is hurting them. While admitting that 150 was not enough, he said that Suryakumar showed them that batting sensibly can get them more than what they want.
“We were hitting that partnership, we just got off to a 50-run partnership, got out at the wrong time, that is something that’s hurting us a little bit. Definitely not a 150 pitch, Surya showed us if you bat sensibly, you can get more than what you got. Lot of credit to Surya at least to get us to 150, but we knew that it wasn’t going to be enough. We took our chances with the ball but they batted quite sensibly,” he said.
Mumbai Indians are next slated to play Punjab Kings on Wednesday (13th April) at MCA Stadium in Pune.
(ANI inputs)
