IPL 2021: MI Skipper Rohit Sharma says, 'Didn't play to our potential till now'

Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma has said that his team didn’t play to their potential. Whereas, his opposite number in Punjab Kings KL Rahul had admitted that his team is not handling pressure situations well enough.

MI has beaten Punjab Kings by six wickets after three back-to-back defeats and are currently back in play-off contentions with 10 points from 11 games. 

At the post-match presentation ceremony, Rohit said, "We do agree that we didn’t play to our potential, but it’s a long tournament and we need to stick to our plans and reading the situations is very important and we can take a lot of confidence from that. It is important not to lose the guard." 

Further, he said, "The way he (Hardik) understood the situation was very crucial from a team’s perspective, it’s important for him to spend the time in the middle as he’s coming back from a injury." 

On the other hand, Rahul seemed disappointed when he was asked about if his young team is unable to cope up with pressure situations.

Rahul said, "It is what it is, we haven’t been able to handle the pressure. We’ll learn more if we play more together as a team. We need to be positive. We have three games, so we need to take one game at a time. We need to go out there and enjoy ourselves. All our games in the UAE have gone down to the wire, hopefully we can build on that."

He also accepted that 135 was not a defendable target on this track. He said, "It was a great fight, but 135 was not enough on this pitch. We should have got about 170. The boys showed a lot of fight with the ball, we have done that two games in a row. The next three games will be interesting for us as the table looks interesting." 

Rohit said, "It’s a tough call (on dropping Ishan Kishan). Saurabh (Tiwary) has played the perfect role today and he’s done well to nudge around in the middle overs. We are gonna back him (Ishan Kishan) as he’s a very important player for us."