Ruthless and working like a well-oiled machine, Mumbai Indians hardly put a foot wrong for the entire IPL season. They have left teams in behind, scratching their heads as to how to stop them. Highlights | Scorecard | News
On Tuesday, young Delhi Capitals learned it the hard way for the fourth time this season. These two teams have met four times through the league stage, qualifiers and then final but not once Delhi can say they had an upper hand over the five-time champions.
This insatiable hunger to succeed and the willingness to put in the extra yards is what makes MI a winner.
“You couldn't have asked any more from the guys. We were right on the money from ball one and even until today, we never looked back. A lot of credit goes to people behind the scenes as well. We got to give (them) a lot of credit. Our work starts much earlier than the IPL starts. We analyse what went wrong, what needs to improved, stuff like that. You've got to find the right balance where you need to stay calm [as a leader]. I'm not someone who'll run with a stick behind someone. The only way you can do it is by giving them confidence,” Rohit said after the match.
Time and again Mumbai have found players both domestic and international who have stood up and shouldered the responsibility. Be it when skipper Rohit was injured and stand-in skipper Kieron Pollard led the side, or Ishan Kishan coming up the order and opening the innings with Quinton de Kock. Hardik Pandya didn’t bowl but hit enough sixes and plundered enough runs in death overs to keep MI alive and ticking in pursuit of the title.
“If you look at our batting, between Hardik, Krunal and Polly (Kieron Pollard), we've been rotating them. In the bowling department too, we try what works with us – (Rahul) Chahar was unfortunate today, we needed Jayant (Yadav) tactically. Ishan Kishan is someone who you can't cloud his judgement, he has to do what he wants to do in the field. Surya (Suryakumar Yadav), the kind of form he was in, I should have sacrificed my wicket. I give him a lot of credit, it's not easy to do that. You got to keep motivating them and giving confidence and they come out with performances like that,” Sharma, said after the match.
A lot of credit as Rohit rightly pointed out goes to the people who work behind the scene and led by Coach Mahela Jayawardene said that it was all about making sure that everyone in the team understood their roles.
“We try is to play to a tempo. It's all about helping them (players) prepare and make sure they understand the roles they play, making things easy for them. We have got a leadership group out there so we try and give them a bit of work to do,” he added.
