Mumbai Indians' captain, Rohit Sharma, opened up about the ugly spat between Harbhajan Singh and Ambati Rayudu which took place during the defending champions' Indian Premier League (IPL) match against Rising Pune Supergiants. Mumbai won the encounter by eight wickets.
When asked whether he had a chat with the concerned players about the issue, the Indian opener dealt with the situation cleverly by down playing the incident. "There was no discussion. I think Bhajji just wanted Rayudu to be a little squarer, so he went there and explained it to him. There was nothing else," Sportskeeda.com quoted Rohit as saying.
During Pune's innings, Harbhajan was bowling to Saurabh Tiwary, when the left-hander squatted him to long on where a diving Rayudu failed to stop the ball from reaching the boundary ropes. As he put in the dive, the ball bounced off his palm and went over the fence.
Harbhajan was furious at Rayudu's fielding effort and yelled at him while conveying his emotions through sign language. Rayudu, who usually stays calm, surprisingly shot back and shouted at the off-spinner hinting that he couldn't have done any better than what he did with the effort. The veteran cricketer, sensing that the situation was getting out of control, walked up to Rayudu and tried to calm him down but the right-hander was in no mood for a peace treaty.
However things finally cooled down when Harbhajan got rid of Peter Handscomb as the duo was seen hugging each other and celebrating the wicket.
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Rohit credited his bowlers for the win against Pune. "Lot of credit to the bowlers, the bowlers have shown again and again that we gave got quality in our bowling and they have come again and again and proved themselves. (It's) is a good sign and always makes the life of a captain easier on the field when you have bowlers like those in your armoury," he said.
Referring to the dropped catches and mis-fielding during the match, the Mumbai skipper said, "One part where we are focused on, is our fielding. We have to be the best fielding team in this whole competition. We have discussed that at the beginning of the tournament. Batting and bowling are sometimes not in your hands, but fielding is. So, I think, we have to put in a lot of effort, and guys are doing that in their training, sometimes, as I said, it comes off and sometimes it doesn't."
