Mumbai Indians had an off day in the field, says captain Rohit Sharma

Mumbai Indians had an off day on the field with below par bowling and catching performance against Royal Challengers Bangalore, said captain Rohit Sharma after his team was whipped by 39 runs in a crucial IPL cricket match at the Wankhede Stadium today. “It was some very good batting by AB 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. [caption id=“attachment_2237080” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Rohit Sharma drops the catch of Chris Gayle. BCCI[/caption] “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 said. RCB 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. Chasing the huge score, MI could make 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 power play, MI had things under control with RCB 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 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 the Mumbai skipper. PTI