"We aren’t playing good cricket..." - Rohit Sharma opens up after 5th straight loss!

Mumbai captain Rohit Sharma explains the reason for the defeat against Punjab.

The 23rd league match of the IPL series was played at the Pune ground yesterday. The Mumbai Indians and Punjab Kings clashed. Punjab, who batted first, got off with a good start. Captain Mayank Agarwal scored 52 and Shikhar Dhawan 70. This was followed by Jitesh Sharma (30) and Shahrukh Khan (15).

Following this, Mumbai batted with a target of 199 to win. But Ishant Kishan, who made his debut, was out for 3. In the middle order, Dewald Brevis scored 49, Tilak Verma 36 and Suryakumar Yadav 43. However, Mumbai lost by just 186 runs in 20 overs.

Captain Rohit Sharma has opened up about the defeat in this situation. He said, “It’s hardly anything to find out (any negatives), thought we played well, came pretty close to closing the game, a couple of run-outs didn’t help our cause. At one time, we were cruising along but didn’t hold our nerves, credit to PBKS for bowling well in the second half. We’re trying to play with a different thought process, but it’s not working out well. But I don’t want to take the credit out of the guys who played well and Punjab did so today.".

“We aren’t playing good cricket; we need to understand some situations and execute according to it. They got off to a flier, put our bowlers was under pressure, but the pitch was good to bat on and I thought 198 was chaseable. As I said earlier, we need to go back to the drawing-room and come back better prepared,” Rohit concluded.

Tilak Verma, who scored 30 runs in yesterday's match, was run out unnecessarily. Similarly Pollard was run out at the crucial point. These two run-outs marked a turning point in the match and led to Mumbai's defeat. So it is said that Rohit Sharma has indirectly slammed senior player Pollard.