Deshpande, Shardul were unsung heroes: Simons
Matheesha Pathirana may have run out with a bagful of wickets to ensure Chennai Super Kings defended 206 without much sweat against Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium. As much as Pathirana, CSK bowling coach Eric Simons credited Mumbai’s pace duo of Shardul Thakur and Tushar Deshpande for their outstanding bowling effort.
“The unsung heroes tonight were Tushar and Shardul. Shardul bowled one of the best overs I have ever seen. We talk about execution; you have got to look at the impact points in that over he went for two runs.
The whole game turns at that moment. At that stage they were looking at 12s13s an over, the game’s very much in the balance. He bowls the over and it goes up at 14. The game turned there,” Simons said after the game at the Wankhede Stadium.
While Shardul conceded just two runs in the 14th over, Deshpande followed it up with one that gave away just three runs and picked a wicket to shut the door on Rohit Sharma and Co.
“Matheesha will get a lot of accolades and he deserves it because of the way he bowled and the breakthroughs he gave us. But those two gentlemen did extremely well for us to push the rate out of reach out of MI.”
“I said to him afterwards, the wickets are a bonus but his accuracy was really good. Sometimes you’ll bowl accurately but not get wickets. Tonight he was accurate and got wickets,” Simons said of Pathirana.
Bayer Leverkusen coach Xabi Alonso said his unbeaten side was “not done yet” after winning its debut league title on Sunday with a treble still possible this season.
Leverkusen’s 50 win over Werder Bremen at home, including a secondhalf hattrick from Florian Wirtz, sealed a first Bundesliga title in its 120year history. Alonso told reporters after the game the sky was the limit for his side, which is yet to lose a match in 43 games this season.
The win sent Leverkusen 16 points clear of Bayern with five games to go.
The results: LaLiga: Real Sociedad 2 (Becker 32, Oyarzabal 59) drew with Almeria 2
(Embarba 30, 88-pen).
Serie A: Inter Milan 2 (Thuram 12, Calhanoglu 74-pen) drew with Cagliari 2 (Shomurodov 64, Viola 83).