Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma on Friday defended his teammate Kieron Pollard and said the ugly spat involving the West Indian and Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Mitchell Starc happened in the heat of the moment and won’t be repeated.
The incident took place here on May 6. “We all have spoken to him. I thought whatever happened, happened in the heat of the game. Nobody wants to ruin the spirit of the game. It happened and we have spoken about it and we have to move forward now,” Sharma said on the eve of the IPl defending champions’ clash against two-time former winners Chennai Super Kings at the Wankhede Stadium.
“Pollard, we know is an aggressive player. He didn’t do anything purposely. As a captain it was my duty to explain or tell him what sort of behaviour you should have on field. We have had a word with him and he is okay with that. Hopefully he will not repeat such mistakes,” he told reporters.
On Saturday’s game against formidable rivals Chennai, Sharma said it will be a very intense contest between two top sides. “We want to take this as another game. We don’t want to think too much about the opposition. We have played them so many times. We played against them in Dubai. We know what is their strength, what they don’t like to do on the field. We know all those things and we are going to discuss that. It is a very important game. They have got some match winners. So it is going to be a great contest between these two teams. last time they were here, we beat them comprehensively. So we will try and do that again. Obviously it is a different team from what we had last year, so is their team,” he said.
Meanwhile, CSK need to quickly get over the mauling they received from Glenn Maxwell’s punitive bat and bounce back, head coach Stephen Fleming said today. “We had reflected on the Maxwell factor at the press conference (at Cuttack two nights ago). On the positive side we scored (around) 190 (187). Our batsmanship is looking good. But we can tie up under pressure and Maxwell has put us under a lot of pressure in this tournament,” said the former New Zealand skipper.
The key for his side is to stay calm which they had exhibited in the past, felt Fleming. “There’s pressure there. We need to get on a winning run to ease the pressure. The moment you lose pressure builds up. Our challenge is to maintain calm. Over the years we have done that well even when we were in a lot of trouble. T20 is highly emotionally strung. We have to maintain smart presence on the field.”