Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma heaped praises on his teammates for their ability to adjust to different conditions and exploit them accordingly after comprehensively defeating Rajasthan Royals by 57 runs on Wednesday.
“We strive to play with power. We’ve got quality in this squad. We’ve given confidence to each one of them because we know they’re very talented,” said Rohit in the post-match presentation ceremony.
“The conditions are quite helpful (for our fast bowlers). We were not sure how the pitches were going to be, whether it’d be helpful for our pace battery. But it was nipping around and it’s good to have guys who can exploit those conditions,” he said.
Mumbai Indians continued their dominating display with yet another all-round performance at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. Apart from batting and bowling, what stood out the most was the fielding display by Sharma’s men.
“The fielding was brilliant, it’s something we take pride in. “We can have ups and downs with the bat and ball but fielding is something we can control. It is something that we pride ourselves with and work very hard on,” he said.
Suryakumar Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah were the main authors who scripted Mumbai Indians’ fourth win in the ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The four-time champions stand at the top of the points table with eight points from five matches.
After Rohit Sharma opted to bat first, he gave his team a fiery start with a quickfire opening partnership of 49 runs. However, it was Yadav’s 47-ball knock of 79 runs that anchored Mumbai’s innings to the big total of 193/4. Rightly so, he was declared the Man of the Match.
“It was coming (for Suryakumar). I spoke to him today before the match. He was batting really well all these games. It was all about shotmaking – today his shortmaking was perfect. All the innovative shots at the end came in handy,” said Rohit.
With a pace attack in red-hot form and led by Bunrah, the defending champions bundled Royals for a total of 136.
Bumrah was the champion with his 4/20 which were his best-ever figure in the history of IPL. He got able support from James Pattinson (2/19) and Trent Boult (2/26).