Mumbai Indians had an off day on the field, with below par bowling and catching, against Royal Challengers Bangalore, conceded captain Rohit Sharma after his team was whipped by 39 runs in a crucial IPL match at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Sunday.
Rampaging De Villiers powers RCB past Mumbai Indians
"It was some very good batting by A B de Villiers, but, as a bowling unit, what we had wanted to do did not happen. We did not take wickets and the fielding did not help with the dropped catches," said Rohit.
"They depend on their top three batsmen. We dropped catches. It was not our day on the field though our fielding has been really good so far. We need to take catches, otherwise it will allow the opposition to get away," he added.
Royal Challengers Bangalore rode on a power-packed, unbeaten, 133 by South Africa's World Cup skipper de Villiers, who smashed four sixes and 19 fours in his 59-ball innings, and his 215-run unconquered second-wicket stand with visiting team skipper Virat Kohli (82 off 50 balls) to rattle up a tournament high score of 235 for 1.
Rohit himself dropped Chris Gayle off a skier but it did not prove costly as the West Indian swashbuckler was out in the next over. But the chance given early on to Kohli by Harbhajan Singh in the same over from Mitchell McClenaghan proved very expensive.
Pandya and Bumrah conceded over 100 runs together
Chasing the huge score, Mumbai Indians could put up only 196 for 7 despite a valiant effort of 68 not out by Lendl Simmons and a quick-fire 49 by fellow-West Indian Kieron Pollard and lost the match tamely.
Rohit said that till the end of the six-over powerplay, Mumbai had things under control, with Royal Challengers at 39 for one, but after that their bowlers could not take any wickets even as 100 runs were added by de Villiers and Kohli between the seventh and 15th overs.
"It was important at that stage to take a wicket. When it did not happen it was difficult to stop the runs against two set batsmen in the last five overs. But, to their credit, they batted well, especially de Villiers," said Mumbai's skipper.
Rohit also defended the decision to call upon Hardik Pandya to bowl two overs at the death when someone like Pollard was around.
"Hardik had bowled well in our last two games, even against Yuvi (Yuvraj Singh) against Delhi Daredevils. Pollard has bowled 2-3 overs in the entire tournament," he said.
Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah both conceded over 100 runs together.
Looking ahead, Rohit said his team has to bounce back and win the remaining two matches against Kolkata Knight Riders on May 14 and Sunrisers Hyderabad in Hyderabad on May 17 in order to qualify for the play-offs.
"We have to decide what to do against the Knight Riders in our next match," he said.
Royal Challengers's Harshal Patel, who bagged 2 for 36 that included the rival captain's wicket, said that he was happy his plan to get Rohit clicked.
"I am happy I could get his wicket exactly as I had planned," he said, about having the Mumbai Indians captain caught at long-on by Mandeep Singh.
