Stylish Mumbai Indians opener Rohit Sharma, who set the Wankhede Stadium on fire on Sunday with an unbeaten half-century in the massive win against Chennai Super Kings, said he never doubted his abilities even when he was going through a prolonged bad patch, extending to the period when India were soundly thrashed at home by New Zealand in the three-match Test series. With the ‘Player of the Match’ trophy in his hand, Rohit, who slammed four boundaries and six maximums in his unbeaten 45-ball 76 and shared an unbroken 114-run partnership with Suryakumar Yadav in the nine-wicket win, added he always believed in the virtue of practising hard even when the chips were down.
“After being here for a long time, it’s easy to start doubting yourself and start doing different things. It was important for me to practice well, hit the ball well. When you are clear in your mind, things like this can happen,” said Rohit, the former MI skipper.
“It has been a while but if you doubt yourself, you put pressure on yourself. It is important to balance how you want to play. Today I wanted to hit the ball but was also important to hold the shape and extend the arms.
“And then if the ball is in the arc, I wanted to try what I always do. It has not been happening consistently but I am not going to doubt myself,” he added.
With one of the stands at the Wankhede Stadium to be built in his honour, Rohit, who played most of his formative cricket here, said it was a “huge honour” for him.
“Looks pretty far! Huge honour. I used to come here as a kid and watch the game. We were not allowed to come here at some stage. Grown up playing at this ground, now to have that stand, huge honour. Don’t know how I will react when it actually comes up. Satisfying part was to finish the game.” Mumbai Indians have jumped to sixth spot with four wins and Rohit said the team is building up the momentum.
“We are peaking at the right time, winning three on the trot. Winning back-to-back is important, we stand in a good position,” he said. MI skipper Hardik Pandya said he was never overly perturbed by Rohit’s lack of runs as he knew they would come sooner or later.
“The way Rohit and Suryakumar bat, it is a relief from outside. You don’t have to worry about Rohit’s form. He’s gonna come good like this. We knew when he comes good, the opposition will be out. SKY (Surya) complemented him,” Hardik said.
“Percentage cricket is high, we are not trying magical stuff and sticking to simple cricket. Knew they were behind the game and wanted to keep it tight. The fast bowlers went for runs and we knew 175 was below par,” said Pandya.
MS Dhoni, who finds his team languishing at the bottom of the table with just two wins from eight games, acknowledged the side was not performing to potential.
“We were quite below par. Knew dew would come in the second half. We should have started our slog early. We should have capitalised and got those runs.
“We never had a par score. If you give away too many (runs to the opposition) in the first six. It wasn’t like it was coming on nicely. We need to realise, we are successful because we play good cricket. But we need not get too emotional,” Dhoni said.
He added that CSK would go back to the drawing board to fix the problems ahead of the next season if the five-time IPL champions don’t qualify for the play-offs this year.
“Take one game at a time. Look at the combinations for the next season, if we don’t qualify.”
Topics mentioned in this article
