IPL 2022: We wanted to finish the season on a high – Rohit Sharma

Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma said they wanted to finish the season on a high after they defeated Delhi Capitals by five wickets at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai on Saturday.

Despite the win, Mumbai Indians finished as the cellar-dwellers in the tournament whereas Delhi Capitals were eliminated. As MI won, RCB was able to qualify for the playoff stages.

MI came up with a good bowling performance to restrict DC to 159 runs after Rohit Sharma won the toss and decided to bowl first. MI pack leader Jasprit Bumrah was right on the money as he returned with impressive figures of 3-25 in his quota of four overs.

Bumrah accounted for in-form Mitchell Marsh and Prithvi Shaw, who was making a comeback after recovering from Typhoid. The gun fast bowler cleaned up dangerous Rovman Powell in the death overs with a searing yorker.

On the other hand, Ishan Kishan played a crucial knock of 48 runs while Rohit Sharma struggled to get going after scoring 13-ball 2. The asking rate kept climbing up as MI could only manage 27-1 in the PowerPlay overs. However, Dewald Brevis and Ishan Kishan were able to get MI back in the contest with a 51-run alliance.

Tim David played a crucial knock of 34 runs off 11 balls with the help of two fours and four sixes to help MI get over the line in the run chase. Tilak Varma scored 21 whereas Ramandeep Singh added 13 to provide the finishing touches.

Rohit Sharma said in the post-match presentation, “We were here to win the game. I know few teams were watching us closely, but we wanted to finish on a high. We’ll try to correct the mistakes next season. It was tough after losing eight games, so we needed to rectify the mistakes. But I think we performed well in the second half of the season. When they got to 160 I was nervous, because it was a sluggish pitch. It wasn’t coming on to the bat nicely. I thought if you restrict a team to 150-160, it was about getting one good partnership. We didn’t get off to a good start, but that (Kishan and Brevis) partnership put us in a good position.

He added, “There are a lot of things, I have been talking about it, it’s the collective performance that can get you through. When the bowlers did well, the batters didn’t. And when the batters performed well, the bowlers didn’t. We came to the party a bit too late, but at least we can take a few positives from this tournament. Every time we go into the auction, we keep an eye on the players who will play for us in a couple of cycles. We get a few youngsters who will eventually go on and play for their country. Congrats to them (on RCB), they have qualified, I would like to wish all the four teams all the best. May the best team win.”

MI could only win four matches and they will look to bounce back stronger in the next season of the IPL.