At One Point, We Were Cruising, I Thought PBKS’ 198 Was Chaseable: Rohit Sharma

Mumbai: Speaking at the post-match presentation ceremony after their 12-run defeat against PBKS, MI captain Rohit Sharma said they came pretty close but didn’t hold their nerves to win the game.

The fifties from Mayank Agarwal and Shikhar Dhawan were backed by a daring bowling performance as Punjab Kings beat Mumbai Indians by 12 runs in their IPL 2022 match at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium here on Wednesday.

This is the fifth consecutive defeat for Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League 2022 while it is their third win of the season for Punjab.

“There’s hardly much to find out from that game. I thought we played the game really well, came pretty close to the back end of our batting innings. It’s just that a couple of crucial runouts there were not needed, but that happens. At one point we were going along with the run rate, but in the end, we could not hold our nerves. Credit to the Kings for the way they bowled at the back end,” Rohit Sharma said in his post-match presentation.

“If you’re not winning the game, you have to try to find a way to be successful as a team, as a batting group. So we’re trying to find different ideas and different thought processes. It doesn’t seem like working at the moment but I don’t want to take anything from people. We fought pretty well. We batted brilliantly, but they held their nerves pretty good, the Kings, and they won the game,” said MI skipper.

“We’ve been not playing good cricket for a while and that’s why we’ve been on the losing side, simple as that. The Kings batted pretty well up front and put pressure on our bowlers, got a 90-100 run partnership to begin with. But I thought 190+ was chaseable on that pitch because that pitch was really good to bat on as you saw when we were batting as well. We just have to go back and see what we do as a team,” he added.

Talking about Punjab Kings’ performance, the MI skipper praised the PBKS batting and said that they put pressure on the Mumbai bowlers when they put on 90-100 runs for the first wicket.

Mayank Agarwal made 52, while Shikhar Dhawan scored 70 as the opening pair put on a 97 for the first wicket to help PBKS reach a defendable target of 198/5.

For MI, Basil Thampi scalped two wickets while star pacer of team Jasprit Bumrah took one wicket.

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