Rohit Sharma urges Mumbai Indians to focus on themselves ahead of IPL final

Rising Pune Supergiant take on Mumbai Indians in a highly-anticipated final of the IPL. While Pune have been a bogey team for Mumbai this season, beating their state rivals on all three occasions, including the first playoff encounter less than a week ago.

But despite the dismal record against Pune this season, Rohit Sharma wants his team to focus on his their collective strengths rather than worry about Pune’s game. Speaking at the pre-match press conference, Rohit said, "The focus is on playing the right game. I am not focussing too much on playing my third final [as captain]. It's important for me that we play the cricket we are expected to play, to stay in that zone and continue to perform how we have been performing all season. It's my responsibility as a captain to ensure we're in that zone and focus on the job at hand."

Mumbai’s lack of form against Pune is a bit ironic given that they’ve gotten past every other team with relative ease this season, including the heavily touted Kolkata Knight Riders. Asked for a reason behind the struggles, the MI skipper acknowledged that his team have made too many mistakes against tonight’s opponents and that they’ll have to rectify those to have any chance of winning.

"It's true we haven't played well against Pune. They have been playing some really good cricket and it's just that we haven't been playing too well on those days. That's the reason we lost those games. Tomorrow we've got to make sure we're better and we play good cricket and focus on what we need to do. If all those things are looked after results will take care of themselves," Rohit said.

Finally given that the final is being played at a neutral venue, Rohit believes that it’s a chance for Mumbai to start afresh.

“Now we're playing them in a neutral venue now. Conditions will be different for both teams. The aim is to avoid whatever mistakes we have done in the past against them. We can learn from the mistakes. Hopefully, we've learnt it and not repeat again tomorrow.”