Chennai: Mumbai Indians (MI) skipper Rohit Sharma lamented the failure of his team’s batting as they failed to put up a challenging total and lost Friday’s Indian Premier League (IPL) match against Punjab Kings (PBKS) by nine wickets.
“Not enough runs, exactly. I still feel it is not a bad wicket to bat on. You can see how Kings (PBKS) won with nine wickets in hand. If you get 150-160, you are always in the game and that is something we have failed in the last two games. We need to look at that,” said Sharma after the match.
The MI opening batsman said that they may have to rethink the strategy of sending Ishan Kishan to bat at No. 3, ahead of Suryakumar Yadav who batted at No. 4. Kishan hasn’t been able to deliver. He struggled to six off 17 balls. Yadav scored 33 off 27 balls and added 79 for the third wicket with Sharma.
“Ishan was trying to hit but couldn’t get it, even myself. In the last four games, we really batted well in the powerplay but today we failed to do so. We’re missing batting all 20 overs the way we want to,” said the India limited overs vice-captain.
“Ishan at [No.] 3 was just a tactical thing. We wanted someone to bat in the middle who plays well against spin and we identified Surya as that player. When it works it looks good, when it doesn’t it looks bad,” added Sharma.
