Teams should fear Mumbai: Rohit
Having led the Mumbai Indians to three straight wins, a confident Rohit Sharma wants to make the Wankhede Stadium their stronghold. Mumbai recorded their fourth win at home in as many games, beating the Kings XI Punjab by four runs on Monday.
Sharma, who celebrated his 26th birthday on Tuesday, said his team would now focus on making their home ground a den where people would fear coming to. The Mumbai batsman has been incharge in two games here so far.
“Home games are very important because you don’t know what you are going to get outside. You have to win as many as possible,” Sharma said after starring in his team’s close win with unbeaten 79 in 39 balls.
“We want to make it our fortress. We want to make it our den and people should fear coming to Mumbai and playing,” he added.
The talented Mumbai batsman hammered six sixes and six fours at a strike rate of 202.56 to power Mumbai to 174/3 after his batsmen struggled against some tight bowling.
Sharma, who replaced the
Stand-in skipper Rohit Sharma says that he wants his team to win as many games as possible at their home ground and make it their fortress
experienced Ricky Ponting in the top job, praised his spinners for bowling well despite the dew. Harbhajan Singh picked up 3/14 and Pragyan Ojha who didn’t get to bowl in the last game against Royal Challengers Bangalore, bagged 2/22 in three overs to derail the visitors’ chase.
“The dew comes a lot over here. It is not easy. Spinners find it difficult to grip the ball but our spinners bowled well. Whether you win by four runs or 50 runs, a win is a win,” Sharma said.
Rohit admitted that he was nervous when Punjab who were bowled out for 170, reached agonisingly close while chasing.
“I wasn’t worried but I was nervous because as a captain you would be obviously. But I just wanted to hold my nerve. I didn’t want to make a mistakes on the field. But it worked out pretty well. I rotated the bowlers well, which was the key,” Sharma said.
“I wasn’t going to bowl. Yeah it is one of those things. Piyush Chawla has bowled in the death overs in the last few years. But tonight it wasn’t coming out for him. So I took the wrong one and sadly went for 27, probably cost us the game,” Hussey said.