Rohit Sharma, Mumbai Indians captain, demolished the Kolkata Knight Riders’ bowlers attack on Wednesday to guide his team to the first victory of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020.
Rohit played a captain knock when Quinton de Kock lost his wicket early. He smashed six maximums and three boundaries in his 80 runs knock off 54 balls to help his team set up 196 runs target against KKR.
The highlight of his innings was his perfect pull shots against the likes of Pat Cummins, Andre Russell and Sunil Narine, who are the best bowlers of KKR. For his terrific outing, the hitman was adjudged with Man of the Match.
In the post-match conference, Rohit Sharma, who also became the second Indian cricketer to strike 200 sixes in IPL after that match, opened up on his game plan.
He said that they were in a good position so he tried to became more ruthless. He also said that he had practiced pull shots before executing them in that match.
“It was only two players from the 2014 squad. It was all about how we executed our plans today, we were in good positions and it was all about being ruthless. The wicket was good and dew was coming down. I back myself to play the pull shots and have practiced quite a bit,” Rohit Sharma said.
I was a bit tired in the end: Rohit Sharma
Rohit Sharma said that although he hadn’t played a match for the past six months, he was happy that his game was not much affected because of the break. He also said that he was happy with his team’s performance.
“Pretty happy with the performance of my squad. All my shots were good (laughs), can’t pick one. I haven’t played a lot of cricket in the last six months time and was looking to spend some time in the middle; it didn’t come out well in the first innings but glad to have done it tonight,” he said.
The four-time IPL winning captain said that he was tired at the end of his innings because of the weather conditions in the UAE. But he had learned that a batsman needs to till the end to win the match.
“It takes a lot out of you to play in these conditions. Maybe I was a bit tired in the end and it was a lesson for us that one set batsmen needs to bat deep till the end. We’ve seen it in the past and that’s what I tried to do,” he said.
Mumbai Indians had lost the IPL opener against Chennai Super Kings before winning the match against KKR. The victory will have given more confidence to the Rohit Sharma-led side.