I feel we still have a good chance to qualify for the knockout phase: Rohit Sharma

The Chinnaswamy stadium saw a spectacular game yesterday with the home team RCB winning by 14 runs. The Mumbai Indians now stand in a must-win situation in every game from here on. With six games left, the franchise needs to win all of them in order to make the playoffs.

The poor form of certain players has hurt the prospects of Mumbai Indians this season. Skipper Rohit Sharma still hasn’t given up on the possibility of reaching the top 4. While he expressed disappointment on the team’s recent performances, he was confident on making a comeback.

Didn’t play smart cricket which was required

Disappointed to end up on the losing side, Rohit took the blame upon himself. He admitted that some better cricket was required on their part. He also pointed out that the loss of wickets in powerplay was where the game went out of their hands.

“It is disappointing to be on the losing side. We got ourselves to blame though. Didn’t play smart cricket which was required, losing wickets in the powerplay didn’t help, that’s where we lost the game. We wanted to keep the scoreboard ticking, partnerships would have helped us.”

He further credited the RCB for their sensational bowling. The trio of Tim Southee, Mohammed Siraj and Umesh Yadav all picked up a couple of wickets each alongside being economical. Rohit conceded that they could’ve restricted them if not for the last over mess by Mitchell McClenaghan.

“Credit to RCB, they bowled really well, it was a tough wicket and they kept us guessing all the time and it made things very difficult for us. I think our bowling was good, we would have taken 167 at the start of play, but we could have kept them down to some 10-15 runs short.”

I feel we still have a good chance to qualify for the knockout phase

In spite of a difficult scenario in front of the defending champions, Rohit was optimistic about the playoffs spot. He felt that it was important to have the belief and perform together as a team. Mumbai Indians have staged brilliant fightbacks in previous editions of the IPL.

“We still need to have the belief in ourselves, we can’t lose hope, need to win almost all our games now. We need to keep to the basics, I feel we still have a good chance to qualify for the knock-out phase of the tournament,”

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