Our real potential came out today: Rohit

Rohit Sharma was relieved man as Mumbai Indians got their first victory of IPL 2022 with a five-wicket win over Rajasthan Royals at the DY Patil Stadium.

Rohit, who turned 35 on Saturday, felt that the win was the perfect birthday gift.

"I would definitely take it (as a birthday gift). That's how we play. The real potential came out today, with the ball especially," he said at the post-match presentation.

MI restricted RR to 158/6 in 20 overs as their five of their six bowlers bowled miserly spells.

"We knew it was gonna be tough to restrict them to that total, but I thought they kept applying the pressure. With that batting lineup, we knew if we keep taking wickets, it's going to be difficult for them. So that's what we wanted to try and we did that perfectly today," he added.

Rohit was pleased that his team, after putting up a fight in the eight losses so far, has finally come together.

"When you have a season like that, you're not sure of your combination. You want to try out so many things, and that's obvious because you're trying to get the right combination," he said.

"Yes, it hasn't worked for the eight games we played, but we were not blown away by the opposition. We came really close and we lost crucial games. Had we won those, things would be different for us."

Rohit was full of praise for spinners Hrithik Shokeen (2-47) and Kumar Kartikeya (1-19) who took on Jos Buttler (67 off 52 balls).

"Both of these guys are quite courageous. When you speak to them, you know that they want to do something special and they don't want to go into hiding. It gives me that confidence to bowl them at any given stage. It was a brave call when I got Shokeen to bowl to Buttler when he was absolutely set. Yes he got a few sixes, but eventually he got him out and that helped us to restrict them to another 10 or 15 runs," he said.

SuryaKumar Yadav (51 off 29 balls) and Tilak Varma (35 off 25 balls) were once again vital to the chase with a partnership of 81 runs while Tim David (20 not out off 9 balls) finished the job for MI.

"If you look at the overall picture, we played very well. Bowlers came together and the batters did the job for us as well," Rohit said.