Mumbai Indians have won their first match of the current season to break their eight game losing streak, having beaten Rajasthan Royals by five wickets on Saturday at Navi Mumbai.
The five-time IPL champions are effectively out of contention to qualify for the competition’s knockout stage after losing eight matches on the trot, but securing the first victory brought more relief than joy to their captain Rohit Sharma , who turned 35. game day.
“That’s how we play. The real potential came out today with the ball especially. We knew it would never be easy for us to limit them to that total,” he said.
“And with this batting line-up, we know if we keep taking wickets, it’s going to be tough for them. That’s what we wanted to try and we did it perfectly today.
Rohit Sharma’s birthday ends with victory for #MumbaiIndians. Suryakumar Yadav is the player of the match, but the few changes MI have made to their roster have also paid off. https://t.co/ghhlSPxxW5
— The Field (@thefield_in) April 30, 2022
The Royals’ batting unit includes current Orange cap holder Jos Buttler who has been in fine form this season. He managed to score a solid 67 of 52, with five limits and four sixes. But the Mumbai franchise managed to limit the opposition to 158 for six.
Sharma, who struggled for form with the bat, only managed to score two runs.
Ultimately, it was the strong partnership between Suryakumar Yadav – who scored 51 of 39 – and Tilak Verma (35 of 30) that gave the chase team more control.
Eventually, it was Tim David’s cameo and Daniel Sams’ first serve that got MI over the line.
𝙈𝙪𝙢𝙗𝙖𝙞𝙞𝙞𝙞…𝙄𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙨𝙨…🔊💙
The locker room yesterday was a 𝕍𝕀𝔹𝔼 😎#A family #DilKholKe #MumbaiIndians #RRvMI IM TV pic.twitter.com/wSpjkAF8gt
— Bombay Indians (@mipaltan) May 1, 2022
“This is the team we faced in the first two games, except for a few bowling changes,” added Sharma. “When you have a season like this, you’re not sure about your combination. You want to try so many things, and that’s obvious because you’re trying to get the right combination. And the conditions are different.
“When you play DY Patil the ball tends to get stuck a bit, and at (Stade Brabourne), Wankhede and Pune the pitches are flat. Keeping all that in mind, we try to line up the best combination,” he said.
“Yeah, it didn’t work for all eight games, but one thing I can say is we weren’t blown away by the opposition. We came very close and lost games, crucial games. If we had won those games, things would have been different for us.
“Looking back, if you look at the bigger picture, we played very well. The bowlers came together and the batters did the work for us as well.
