Mumbai Indians head coach Mark Boucher defended Rohit Sharma’s decision to bowl inexperienced Arjun Tendulkar in the 16th over in place of the veteran spinner Piyush Chawla, who had a brilliant day with the ball for the five-time champions. Tendulkar’s over proved costly for the Mumbai Indians as he conceded 31 runs in that over.
Piyush Chawla had a terrific outing with the ball for the Mumbai Indians, as he was the pick of the bowler for them in the tournament so far picked up nine wickets from six games and bowled brilliantly well against Punjab Kings to pick up two wickets in his three overs in the match and too many experts were surprised that Chawla didn’t bowl his final over.
Speaking on Rohit Sharma’s decision to bowl Arjun Tendulkar instead of Piyush Chawla, Mark Boucher said that Rohit Sharma is an experienced captain and he could have probably felt that it was the right moment for Arjun to bowl in that over and feels that decision was based on the matchups.
“I’m sure you know Rohit Sharma is a very experienced cricketer and probably felt at that particular stage, I think it was the 14th or 15th over that Arjun bowled. He probably felt that there was a bit of a matchup at that stage of the game. That’s a decision that he made out there,” Mark Boucher said.
The move shifted the momentum in the favor of the Punjab Kings side as they scored 96 runs from the last five overs to post a mammoth total of 214-8 at the end of 20 overs. Mumbai Indian’s pacer could not execute his plans in the death overs as Sam Curran, Harpreet Bhatia, and Jitesh Sharma took them for cleaners in the end overs.
In Hindsight, You Probably Look At Piyush Chawla And Say Yeah – Mark Boucher
Mark Boucher said that it was tough to call for the captain to under bowl Piyush Chawla and feels in hindsight it feels like Chawla should have bowled his full quota of overs and added that it would have been difficult for Arjun Tendulkar to bowl in the back end of the innings.
“Sometimes it may go your way and sometimes they don’t go. Unfortunately, it didn’t go his way. In hindsight, you probably look at PC (Piyush Chawla) and say yeah, you should have bowled these overs, but sometimes the matchups don’t work.
“That’s just the nature of T20 cricket. So no issues there. And then, for Arjun, it’ll be tough on him coming at the back end and bowling at the Wankhede,” Mark Boucher added.
The former South African coach said that the conditions were very good to bat on as the wicket was better for batting and added that they were well within the reach to achieve the target before Arshdeep Singh bowled a terrific final to put them out of the contest.