We're trying to find different ideas but nothing seems to be working now: Rohit Sharma

Mumbai Indians’ misfortune in the ongoing season just doesn’t seem like coming to an end as the franchise lost their fifth consecutive game of the season on Wednesday to stay at the bottom of the table. Dewald Brevis’ knock gave them a real chance to get the better of Punjab Kings but the Mayank Agarwal-led side made a stellar comeback in the middle-overs to dismiss their batters regularly.

While the bowling hasn’t clicked for Mumbai this season, there is plenty of introspection to do as well as far as their decision-making is concerned. For reasons completely known to them, they continued to bench Tim David despite betting big on him during the auction. Other decisions like playing Ramandeep Singh early on made a little sense as well. Speaking in the post-match interview, Rohit Sharma conceded that they were trying different combinations in order to find the winning formula.

“If you're not winning games, you've got to try to find a way you can succeed as a team as a batting group,” Rohit said in an interview with host broadcasters. “So we're trying to find different ideas, different thought processes. It doesn't seem to be working at the moment but I don't want to take anything away from the guys. 

“We fought pretty well. We batted brilliantly, but they held their nerves pretty good, the Kings, and they won the game. We've been not playing good cricket for a while and that's why we've been on the losing side, simple as that.” 

On the back of half-centuries from Shikhar Dhawan and Mayank Agarwal, Punjab Kings managed a total of 198 runs and even though one expensive over from Rahul Chahar changed the dynamics of the game, Mumbai failed to seize the momentum. Rohit, however, felt that it was a chaseable total with the ball coming to the bat nicely.

“The Kings batted pretty well upfront and put pressure on our bowlers, got a 90-100 run partnership to begin with. But I thought 190+ was chaseable on that pitch because that pitch was really good to bat on as you saw when we were batting as well. We just have to go back and see what we do as a team,” the Mumbai Indians skipper added. 

Mumbai Indians will now hope to open their account against Lucknow Super Giants at the Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai on April 16.