“Just the combination that we felt…”: Rohit Sharma explains why Mumbai Indians played with two overseas players vs RCB

Rohit Sharma: The captain of Mumbai Indians was visibly dejected after a fourth consecutive Indian Premier League 2022 loss.

Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma has admitted that there are multiple areas which the team will have to address after suffering a humiliating fourth consecutive loss in the ongoing 15th season of the Indian Premier League.

Sharma, who pinpointed how their batters will have to bat “as deep as possible”, talked about how first-innings totals of 150-160 aren’t enough against top oppositions like Royal Challengers Bangalore.

“Lot of areas actually [to address]. We want some of our batters to bat as deep as possible. That is one thing we are looking at, if we get runs on the board, there’s something for the bowlers to do,” Sharma told Star Sports during the post-match presentation ceremony.

ALSO READ: James Neesham criticizes Ulhas Gandhe for Virat Kohli lbw dismissal

“In the last two games, we were not able to do that. Last game we got 160, this game we got 150-odd, on a pitch like that, it’s not enough. When you come up against an opposition like that, it’s never going to be enough.”

Rohit Sharma explains why Mumbai Indians played with two overseas players vs RCB

Mumbai’s latest match had commenced on a strange note as Sharma announced two surprising changes at the toss. Overseas left-arm fast bowlers Daniel Sams and Tymal Mills getting replaced by debutants Ramandeep Singh and Jaydev Unadkat neither made a lot of sense on paper nor reaped fruits on the field.

“Just the combination that we felt would be ideal on certain pitches and certain opposition. We wanted to strengthen our batting, unfortunately we had few overseas guys who were unavailable, so we wanted to get the best from whatever we had,” Sharma said.

Sharma, who was wax lyrical about batter Suryakumar Yadav for scoring a fighting 27th T20 half-century, expressed disappointment at his own batting form which didn’t allow him to convert his start into something significant.

“Just got 26 [off 15 balls]. I wanted to bat as long as possible but unfortunately I got out at the wrong time. We [himself and Ishan Kishan] were hitting that partnership. We just got off to a 50-run [opening] partnership, got out at the wrong time. That is something that’s hurting us a little bit,” Sharma added.

Fourth-highest run-scorer for the team this season, Sharma’s 80 runs have come at an average and strike rate of 20 and 125 respectively.