IPL 2023: Playing behind the wicket is Suryakumar’s strength, he utilised it very well, says Rohit Sharma

Mohali: After chasing down 215 against Punjab Kings to win by six wickets in IPL 2023, Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma heaped praise on Suryakumar Yadav, pointing out that getting runs behind square is a strength point which he utilised very well in Mohali.

Suryakumar was all class in his whirlwind 66 off 31 balls, hitting eight fours and two sixes at a strike-rate of 212.9, leaving no area untouched with his trademark innovative shots while sharing a match-winning partnership of 116 for the third wicket with Ishan Kishan to help Mumbai chase down 215 with seven balls to spare.

“Look, he (Suryakumar) has been doing that for the last couple of years. Batted brilliantly. To play behind the wicket, that’s his strength and he utilised it really well. Surya and Kishan batted brilliantly and good finish by Tim and Tilak,” said Rohit in the post-match presentation ceremony.

He was also in praise of Kishan, who slammed 75 off 41 balls with seven fours and four sixes at a strike-rate of 182.93. “(Ishan) is a little man but he has got a lot of power. He practices those shots that we saw today. So what matters is what he does off the field and it comes off on the field.”

With Wednesday being the second time Mumbai chased a 200+ score in the competition, Rohit emphasised on how important it has been for his batting group to be fearless in their approach.

“When we started T20 format, 140-150 was a winning score. But look at this one. Plus one extra batter makes a huge difference as well. Not just to us but across the IPL. I just checked that the average score this IPL is 180.”

“Before the start of the season we spoke about how we want to play our cricket. With the bat, we just wanted to go out there and play fearlessly and not worry about the results. Often you think about the results you move away from your plans. But we talked right at the start that we want to be fearless.”

Rohit admitted that Mumbai’s death overs bowling needs attention, after conceding 69 runs in last five overs. “It is something that we need to look at, certain options we need to take in the middle of the overs, how to shut off overs. It’s been three or four games where we have conceded 200 so we need to find those options in the middle.”

Punjab skipper Shikhar Dhawan conceded that his bowlers’ lines could have been better in power-play and lamented the bowling attack for not stepping up to the occasion in cohesion. Barring pacer Nathan Ellis’ 2/34, none of the bowlers were effective, with Arshdeep Singh conceding 66 runs for one wicket in 3.5 overs, his most expensive figures in the IPL.

“We started off quite well and thought that was a very good total but unfortunately we could not defend it. I feel that, of course Rishi bowled really well, but from the other end, we bowled outside the off stump quite a bit and we should have bowled on off in the powerplay. And then Ishan and Surya just took the game away.”

“We should have bowled tighter lines. Because we saw the wicket and saw it’s a very good wicket, we thought change of pace will work a lot and I feel Nathan bowled really well but other bowlers didn’t step up today. There was dew on the field and the wicket got a bit better, I felt that if one spinner gets hit then it gets hard to contain runs.”

–IANS