Krunal Pandya has been impressive: Rohit Sharma

Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma was pleased and satisfied after his side defeated the Royal Challengers Bangalore at Mumbai on Wednesday. Mumbai had lost their previous two matches and a win against RCB marked their first win at their fortress, the Wankhede Stadium.

Mumbai Indians defeated Royal Challengers by six wickets as they chased down 171 for the win. Rohit led the chase with a 44-ball 62 and crucial contributions from Kieron Pollard and Jos Buttler saw Mumbai home with 6 wickets in hand.

The skipper was pleased for the reason that the game helped them to find the right combination.

“See, as a captain of the team, it is always important to get the right balance as soon as you can, because lot of domestic players — sometimes you know so much of international cricket we play, we don’t get to see them. So, it’s important you have got a lot of scouters who go and scout people and see how they perform and what their capabilities are. We have got a lot of inputs from our scouts and a lot of young players,” Rohit said at the press conference after the win at Mumbai.

Rohit was all praise for the team management for spotting the local talent in the local games. “Luckily, we have a couple of practice games to see what these local guys can do — I mean local Indian players can do – and it’s important to get that combination right. Luckily, we have got such a great management who keeps giving inputs to us, how we can fit this guy into the team… We have got a nice and balanced squad right now and hopefully they can continue to play for a longer period of time and perform the way they need to,” he said.

Talking about Krunal Pandya, who has been impressive with both bat and ball in the last two games, Rohit Sharma commended the all-round ability of Pandya. “He (Krunal) has been impressive, no doubt about that… even in the first game he played here against Gujarat Lions. He did not get wickets but bowled four overs for just 20 runs and, then he did it with the bat in (Sunrisers) Hyderabad, scored 49 off just 25 or 26 balls and again today getting those two big important wickets in the middle (AB and Kohli) was very crucial from the team’s perspective,” he said.  “I think he is got something about him, he knows his bowling really well and he understands the conditions really well, so it makes my job easier as a captain. He sets his own field,” he added.

“I think he is got something about him, he knows his bowling really well and he understands the conditions really well, so it makes my job easier as a captain. He sets his own field,” he added.

When asked about his batting position, the Mumbai Indians skipper said that he will continue to open the innings. He had come in to bat at number 4 in the match against Sunrisers Hyderabad and the plan didn’t work well for them.

“I will, I will bat at the top of the order. As far as our batting is concerned, it looks more settled with Ambati Rayadu batting at three and myself batting at the top of the order and we wanted Pollard to get back in form as quickly as possible, and today was a perfect day for him. I think more or less I will continue to open for the rest of the tournament,” Rohit added.

Know more about Krunal – 11 Interesting facts about Krunal Pandya