IPL 2018 | I was motivated to win the match for Mumbai Indians, says Krunal Pandya

05/06/2018

Krunal Pandya, who smashed an unbeaten 31 off 12 balls to take his team home, revealed that he was motivated to win the match for his team as he had let his team down in their last match. Krunal felt that their bowlers’ bowled well in the power-play and used the slower balls to good effect.

Mumbai Indians defeated Kings XI Punjab by six-wickets at the Holkar Stadium in Indore on Saturday, courtesy to cameos from Krunal Pandya and Rohit Sharma. Both the players shared an unbeaten stand of 56 runs for the fifth wicket, which paved the way for the Mumbai win. The match was in level and could have gone either way when Mumbai needed 55 runs from 27 balls. However, Krunal Pandya and Rohit Sharma made sure that the game went in their favor and reached the target of 175 with one over to spare.

Krunal Pandya revealed that he was motivated to win the game for Mumbai as he had failed to deliver in the match against RCB.

“I am very happy personally. In the last game against RCB, we had a similar equation. In the last five overs, we needed some 60 runs. I failed to deliver on that occasion. So I was even more motivated for this game, because I wanted to win it for the team. It’s nice that I helped the team win this one,” Krunal revealed after the game.

Suryakumar Yadav was the top scorer for Mumbai with 57 off 42 balls. Except for Yadav, no one else from the top order contributed significantly in the chase. Hardik Pandya, who was promoted to number 4, could only score 23 off 13 balls. Rohit Sharma, who came in to bat at number 5, scored an unbeaten 24 off 15 balls and helped his team stay alive in the tournament.

“After tonight’s result, I hope you have an idea why Rohit comes down the order,” said Krunal. “He belted two sixes in an over and hit three boundaries [Rohit hit one four]. That was the turning point of the match, so if you look at the positives, we won because of Rohit. But again, it depends on the situation. In our team, any batter can come and play at any position. As batsmen, we’re quite flexible. We can play at any position.”

Suryakumar Yadav, who has enjoyed a successful stint as an opener for Mumbai Indians, agreed with the thoughts of Krunal Pandya. He revealed that he didn’t know before the starting of the season if he would bat as an opener while adding that he has kept everything simple and has not taken any pressure.

“I’m really enjoying my role as an opener. I didn’t know if I would be used an openers before the season started, but I was really flexible to bat at any position for this team," Yadav said.

“I’ve been playing most of my games at Wankhede so batting order was not an issue, but opening the innings for such a big team would be a huge responsibility and a challenge, so I accepted it. Rather than thinking too much, I really kept it simple and played my natural game.”

KL Rahul and Chris Gayle have been in top form for KXIP this season and they have scored most the runs for their team. Even against Mumbai they started off briskly by hitting 3 sixes and 4 fours, but were later controlled by Jasprit Bumrah and Mitchell McClenaghan, who used slower balls quite effectively. Once Gayle and Rahul were out by the 12 over, Punjab lost the plot and were kept to 174 for 5, thanks to a disciplined effort by Mumbai’s bowlers.

“If you look at KXIP only their top two are doing the bulk of the runs, Rahul has been in form throughout, and Gayle is also in decent touch. We bowled well in the Power Play, the way we used the slower balls and change of pace… Bumrah and Mitch bowled well in that crucial time and were able to restrict them,” Krunal added.

R Ashwin, however, felt that his side played good cricket and called Rohit Sharma and Krunal Pandya as the game changers in the match. He defended his bowlers and stated that any bowler could have gone for plenty against Sharma and Pandya.

“Maybe we were 5-10 runs short, but I don’t think we played bad cricket. It’s a tough ground to defend any total. After 15 overs, we thought there we had a good chance to win, but when Rohit is there till the end, I knew it would be tough. There’s not a lot of games that Rohit doesn’t finish when he stays till the 20th over," Ashwin said.

“Even Mujeeb got hit, we used all our best available bowlers, but all of them got attacked. In T20 you can’t say in hindsight that someone else should have bowled in the death. When batsmen like Rohit and Krunal are batting, anything can happen.”

Although Ashwin was confident of bouncing back from the loss, he identified fielding as the only area of concern for Punjab.

“Fielding has been one of our weaknesses throughout the tournament. Even today we gave a few runs, maybe 5-10 runs. After the auction, we had realised that fielding could be our weak area, but we all are trying hard to improve,” he added.

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