Chennai, April 14: At one stage, Mumbai Indians were almost staring at the exit door in their IPL 2021 match against the Kolkata Knight Riders. But the defending champions made a terrific comeback to win the match by 10 runs at the MA Chidambaram Stadum here on Tuesday (April 13).
Mumbai made a well below-par 152 all out but they limited KKR to 142 to celebrate a memorable victory. Skipper Rohit Sharma was understandably elated.
"It was a great fightback considering where the game was while they were batting. Anyone who came to bowl at different stages wanted to put their hands up and do something for the team. We can take a lot of confidence from this game. There were lots of positives," Rohit told host broadcaster.
"The way KKR started, they batted brilliantly in the first six overs. But once the powerplay was gone, the way Rahul came and got wickets was crucial. And Krunal at the end was also crucial. I can praise all the bowlers. Good signs for the team moving forward. Definitely not easy on this pitch, a set batter needs to carry on as long as possible.
"The trend in Chennai is when the new batsman comes in, it becomes hard to go from ball one, unlike Wankhede. To be honest, we were 15-20 runs short. The way we started, we should have batted better. That's happened twice, we need to see how to get better. But I don't want to take credit away from the team. I think SKY is carrying that form that he had when he played for India.
"He's very fearless when he bats. When he plays those shots and it doesn't look like he's taking risks, those are cricketing shots. We need a guy who bats fearlessly. I'm glad that we could get some partnerships in the middle and get a decent total. We need to just figure out how to finish innings in the last 5 overs. We've done that in the past."