Under pressure after four consecutive defeats, Mumbai Indians came out with a positive display to register their first win in this year's Indian Premier League, said team skipper Rohit Sharma on Sunday.
Mumbai Indians produced a clinical performance to beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by 18 runs in a high-scoring affair to register their maiden win in IPL 8. Sent into bat, Lendl Simmons and Unmukt Chand first smashed strokeful half-centuries to power Mumbai Indians to an imposing 209 for seven and then veteran off-spinner Harbhajan Singh (3/27) weaved his magic to restrict RCB to 191 for seven.
"The way we batted was brilliant, we were positive all throughout. Finally putting everything was good to see and we got to a good score," Rohit said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
"The bowlers did a very good job in the end, fantastic in the end as there was dew. There was pressure on us after losing four out of four. We were positive to start off and finished off really well. (Lasith) Malinga wanted to prove a point against this quality line-up, not just him everyone bowled well - Bhajji (Harbhajan) and (Mitchell) McClenaghan as he got Kohli's wicket," he added.
IPL 8: Mumbai Indians win by 18 runs; brave RCB go down fighting
Losing skipper Virat Kohli feels RCB need to work on a lot of aspects of their game. "It was entertaining how AB (de Villiers) and (David) Wiese played it out in the end. A lot of things went wrong except for what those two did," he said.
"We should have had a better approach in our batting. We need guys to play the way AB did, Wiese also backed himself and played positive cricket. Some of our guys got out in unlucky ways at the wrong times. We have a lot of things to look at, including the bowling," he added.
"We bank on our opening stand and the start we get, that's one area we need to improve in as well. We gave too many extras and we need to look at that. We need to look at one game at a time," Kohli signed off.
