Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma blamed run-outs after his team suffered their fifth loss of the season against Punjab Kings at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune on Wednesday. Tilak Varma and Kieron Pollard were run-out at a crucial junction during their run-chase of 199 runs.
Varma, who has impressed in his maiden IPL season, had to walk back to the dressing room after a mix-up with Suryakumar Yadav. The young left-hander was looking good after scoring 36 runs from 20 balls.
Subsequently, it looked like the experienced duo of Kieron Pollard and Suryakumar Yadav will get MI to their first win of the season. But their alliance was broken after the West Indian was found short of his crease in an attempt to come for the second run.
The onus then felled on the shoulders of Suryakumar Yadav, who scored another impressive knock of 30-ball 43 after a scratchy start but could not take his team over the line in the run-chase.
Rohit Sharma feels there were not any negatives from the match but gave credit to Punjab Kings for winning the crucial stages of the game.
Rohit Sharma said in the post-match presentation, “It’s hardly anything to find out (any negatives), thought we played well, came pretty close to closing the game, a couple of run-outs didn’t help our cause. At one time, we were cruising along but didn’t hold our nerves, credit to PBKS for bowling well in the second half. We’re trying to play with a different thought process, but it’s not working out well. But I don’t want to take the credit out of the guys who played well and Punjab did so today. We aren’t playing good cricket, we need to understand some situations and execute according to it. They got off to a flier, put our bowlers under pressure, but the pitch was good to bat on and I thought 198 was chaseable. As I said earlier, we need to go back to the drawing-room and come back better prepared.”
Mumbai Indians have a lot of work to do as they have lost all of their five matches. The five-time champions will now move to Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai to take on new entrant Lucknow Super Giants on Saturday.
