Captain Rohit asks Mumbai to remain ruthless
Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma has urged his team mates to stay “ruthless” on the field and maintain their momentum in the Indian Premier League after the defending champions climbed to the top of the table with their fifth win in as many matches.
The four-time IPL winners have won six of their eight matches in this year’s tournament, which is being held in the United Arab Emirates due to concerns over the Covid-19 pandemic in India.
Sharma and South African wicketkeeper-batsman Quinton de Kock added 94 for their opening stand as Mumbai chased down a target of 149 against the Eoin Morgan-led Kolkata Knight Riders on Friday with eight wickets in hand and 19 balls to spare. Sharma was pleased with his team’s “clinical” performance. “I think it’s important for us to make sure that we stay on the money,” Sharma said at the post-match presentation.
“We can’t get complacent and we know that this tournament can get funny. We’ve already seen games, how teams have lost, so we can’t take the foot off the pedal at any given point.
“We have to keep making sure that we’re ruthless on the field and, yes, the guys are hungry. They’ve not played cricket for six months and they want to come out here and express themselves.” While the Mumbai team is enjoying a strong run, two-time winners Kolkata have had a mixed season and saw their skipper Dinesh Karthik step down hours before Friday’s match to hand the reins to England’s World Cup-winning captain Morgan.
But a change in captaincy made little difference as a toporder batting collapse meant the team fell to their fourth defeat in eight matches. “With the bat early on, I think we made a few mistakes,” Morgan said. “I thought Mumbai Indians bowled really well and proved exactly why they’re one of the form teams in the tournament so far.
“And from here on (top order is) another area we need to make strides on. We’ve just passed the halfway stage in the tournament and no better time to turn things around.”
MI face KXIP next
On Sunday, Mumbai take on a Chris Gayle-inspired Kings XI Punjab and they can ill afford to be complacent. A win for Mumbai Indians will virtually seal them a spot in the play-offs while a loss for KXIP could send them out of contention.
Tabble-toppers MI boast of top batsmen such as captain Rohit Sharma (251 runs) and his opening partner Quinton de Kock (269) and both are in good touch, while the middle-order is manned by the likes of Suryakumar Yadav (243 runs) and Ishan Kishan (186 runs).
On the bowling front, pacers Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult have formed the most successful pair this IPL with 12 wickets apiece from eight matches so far.
Spinner Rahul Chahar chipped in against KKR with two wickets for 18 runs. On the other hand, KXIP are languishing at the bottom of the table despite having the top-two leading run-getters of the tournament in skipper KL Rahul (387 runs at a strike rate of 134.84) and his opening partner, Mayank Agarwal (337 runs).
KXIP’s problem has been that their batting and bowling have not fired in unison on most occasions even though their confidence has been boosted by the return of Gayle.
Brief scores: KKR 148/5 in 20 overs (P Cummins 53*, E Morgan 39*; R Chahar 2/18) lost to MI 149/2 in 16.5 overs (Q de Kock 78*, R Sharma 35) by eight wickets.