Mohali, Apr 19: Batter Ashutosh Sharma produced a brilliant rearguard knock but Punjab Kings still ran out of steam and lost to Mumbai Indians by nine runs in the Indian Premier League on Thursday.
Sharma scored 61 runs off 28 balls, including seven sixes, as he helped Punjab recover from 77-6 to mount a serious challenge before the hosts fell short.
Pacers Gerald Coetzee and Jasprit Bumrah bowled Mumbai to victory, sharing six wickets in eight overs.
Suryakumar Yadav had earlier scored 78 off 53 balls to help Mumbai post 192-7 (20 overs). Punjab managed 183 in 19.1 overs, nevertheless a remarkable recovery from 49-5 at one stage.
Bumrah, POTM, said This was a close game. Much closer than what we thought it would go. Of course you want to make an impact when the ball does something. In this format the ball swings two overs. When I want to bowl more, I play Test cricket. That fulfills my desires. This format is a little difficult for bowlers, with time restrictions and impact player rules. Batting lineup becomes deeper and deeper. But that’s not in your control. I do relay the message to the bowlers whenever I can. But you also don’t want to deliver too many messages in the heat of the moment.
Hardik, MI captain, said, Very good game of cricket. Everyone’s nerve got tested. We did speak about before the game that the character will be checked in this game. Naturally you think you’re ahead in the game. But we knew IPL has a tendency to produce these games. Unbelievable – coming in and playing like that (Ashutosh’s knock). Almost every ball hitting the middle. Happy for him and chuffed for his future. We did speak in the timeout that it doesn’t matter how good we look. We’ll keep scrapping in this game. We were quite soft in certain overs. Nevertheless, a win is a win.
Sam Curran, PBKS captain , said, Another close one, I think this team likes a close one, but unfortunately another loss. Another incredible knock from the young guy (on Ashutosh), but another close loss. It’s very tough, you want to lose close games rather then getting absolutely thumped, but we’ve lost a lot of wickets at the start, the way the younger guys have taken the team so close is heartening (on Shashank Singh and Ashutosh Sharma). They have incredible confidence, you see a guy like Ashutosh having the confidence to play the sweeps and the big hits against pacers, it’s so great to watch them in action. It’s disheartening to lose close games, but there are a lot of positives in this team. We still have the belief in us, we believe we can turn this around, the sun will come up tomorrow and we will hopefully get on a winning run.
