Published: May 22, 2017, 11:39 AM (IST)
Edited: May 22, 2017, 05:37 PM (IST)
The Indian Premier League (IPL) final on Sunday night turned out to be one roller-coaster ride, which eventually went in favour of Mumbai Indians (MI), who won it by an agonisingly close margin of 1 run. After posting a mere 129 on the board batting first, Mumbai rode on the brilliance of their bowlers as well as senior players, who helped the team stay calm and on course of a famous win. Mahela Jayawardene, who was into his first year as the MI head coach, was naturally ecstatic after the title win. He praised his bowlers for defending the total, senior players and skipper Rohit Sharma after the match.
“The credit should go to the boys. Very good bunch of guys, lot of senior players; they created the opportunity for us today, kept everyone calm,” Jayawardene said in a chat with BCCI after the match. “It was a marathon for us. It is not how you start the race, but how you finish it. I think we finished brilliantly. Credit to all the senior group, who really stood up today,” he added.
On being asked how he managed to keep the side’s morale high during the innings break after putting up an average score, Jayawardene said, “I was really strong on keeping the heads high and believe that we can defend this, and to take the game as deep as possible, not giving them anything easy. That is what they did.”
The coach was all praise for Rohit’s captaincy as well as the senior group. He also credited Rohit for using the experience of the seniors to perfection. “Rohit has been a fantastic leader. This season we asked him to do a lot of things, especially batting at No. 4 for us was a big move. But he took it positively and also guided the team well, allowing other guys to play little different roles for us. He had lot of help from Polly [Kieron Pollard], Mali [Lasith Malinga], PP [Parthiv Patel], Mitch [Mitchell Johnson]. All these guys have ample experience and he used them in the right way and got us over the line,” Jayawardene said.
The MI coach then signed off hailing the team effort. He praised all the players who were used at different stages of the tournament. Jayawardene had special words for senior pros Harbhajan Singh and Mitchell McClenaghan, who played a brilliant role during the victorious campaign but missed out on the final due to combination and injury issues.
