Mumbai Indians (MI) captain Rohit Sharma loves the manner in which Pandya brothers — Krunal and Hardik — express themselves on the field which makes them a treat to watch from the dug-out.
“You must have seen both (Hardik and Krunal) of them on the ground. They are expressive. That’s just how they play. And we have given them the liberty to express themselves. It brings out the best from them and we also enjoy seeing that from the dressing room,” Rohit said at the post-match presentation.
The MI skipper was happy with his team’s all-round show. “It was a perfect platform for us to showcase our talents with the ball because we all know how the Sunrisers, especially the top four, bat, so firstly credit to the bowlers for coming out and restricting them.”
It was perfect execution that has made him happy. “When they execute their plans, it becomes easy for a captain to manoeuvre his field. We know how Warner plays upfront as well as Shikhar. Lot of credit goes to the bowlers and the fielders.”
But Rohit doesn’t want to look too far ahead as it’s only three matches into the tournament. “Still early days, just three games, but we would like to take a lot from the three games. I could not have asked for anything more from each of the 10 players. But now the big challenge, we go to Bangalore.”
Sunrisers skipper David Warner reckoned that they were probably 20-30 runs short. “We needed a better score. If we sum it up, we were 20-30 short and one of us needed to get a big score. We need to go to Kolkata and start again with a positive attitude.”
Sunrisers bowlers failed to cope with the Mumbai batting line-up and the dew that made a sizeable presence felt at the Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday night. However, it was the inability of its batsmen to make use of the powerplay and the death overs that eventually resulted in the defending champion suffering its first defeat of the Indian Premier League's tenth edition.
The fancied Sunrisers' batting line-up could score only 34 runs in the first six overs and 40 in the last five, which eventually resulted in the team scoring a sub-par 158 for eight against Mumbai Indians. Though pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar admitted after the loss that it was a “below average” total, he defended the batting unit.
"There wasn't anything wrong (with our batting). It was one of the days when you play your shots but they go to the fielders' hands and you couldn't find the gaps. If you look at the start, we did not lose any wickets in the (first) 10 overs," said Kumar. "It was a good start but 160-170 isn't enough on this surface in this ground, especially with the dew. It was one of those days (when) things didn't go our way."
Sunrisers will be hoping for a quick turnaround when it faces Kolkata Knight Riders on Saturday.
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