Chris Lynn who made his debut for the Mumbai Indians in the IPL 14 curtain-raiser against Royal Challengers Bangalore backed his captain Rohit Sharma for keeping three of Jasprit Bumrah’s overs in the death. Rohit Sharma has always relied on Bumrah to give him important breakthrough in crucial junctures and he has his way of handling his bowlers in crucial phases of the match. Lynn said that Rohit ‘has a method to his madness' in context to his tactical moves during the opening encounter of IPL 14.
"Rohit has been a very successful captain, so you got to back the captain and back the moves he makes," he said at the press conference after the conclusion of the opening match. "I think Bumrah is excellent in death overs, so he wanted to keep his overs at the back-end."
"Rohit has a method to his madness, so at the end of the day, it (not using Bumrah against Maxwell early) wasn't a tactical error. Just that it was a skill error on our part," he added.
Rohit Sharma has been the most successful IPL captain with five titles under his belt. Meanwhile, it must be noted that MI haven’t won any of their opening games in the competition since 2013. The defending champions in that regard will be in a good space after losing the first match which has been the case with them for several years now. However, they have managed to win five titles in that period.
Coming back to the match, Rohit used just five bowlers during the course of the innings. Hardik Pandya who threw underarm from the deep on at least a couple of occasions wasn’t given the ball and it was perhaps due to a shoulder niggle which Lynn mentioned during the presser.
"I think Hardik has a bit of shoulder niggle, but I'm not 100 per cent sure. The physios and the doctors will look after that if anything's wrong with Hardik. We missed the sixth bowler, but it's very early in the tournament, still a long way to go. But I do believe if Hardik is bowling, that brings in a lot of confidence in his batting and adds another dimension, not only to his game but also for us."
Lynn, who was making his debut for the Mumbai Indians scored a brisk 49 but in the process ran out his skipper. He came in the XI as a replacement for Quinton de Kock who is currently serving a seven-day quarantine.
"It was my first game for Mumbai, so obviously I was a bit nervous and I batted with Rohit for the first time as well. If I had been able to run past him and sacrifice my wicket, I definitely would have done it, but that wasn't the case. Running out my captain, it was my first game for Mumbai, well it could be my last, who knows. Happens in the game of cricket,” Lynn added.
Riding on a brilliant knock from the blade of AB de Villiers, RCB huffed and puffed to their victory target of 160 in the final ball of the match. RCB who are looking for their elusive IPL title will look to continue the momentum in the coming matches.