Mumbai Indians beat Chennai Super Kings in a mouth-watering Indian Premier League finale on Sunday night in Hyderabad.
MI lifted their fourth IPL title under the same skipper, Rohit Sharma, as they beat the Yellow Army to become the team with most IPL titles.
One of the big heroes for Mumbai was Jasprit Bumrah who finished with figures of 2/14 in his four overs. He was also MI’s highest wicket-taker of the season, picking 19 wickets in 16 outings.
Following the win on Sunday night, the victorious team returned to Mumbai on Monday and following an open bus parade, Bumrah and his skipper Rohit Sharma made a quick stop at the CEAT cricket awards. Both players won an award each with Rohit bagging the ‘International ODI Cricketer of the Year' trophy and Bumrah being named the ‘International Bowler of the Year’.
Following their wins, the two Mumbai Indians players were invited on stage for a short chat on the IPL and also the upcoming World Cup.
Bumrah started by talking about his mindset in the final against CSK where the fast bowler was seen smiling even when fielders dropped catches off his fielding or keeper Quinton de Kock let a ball pass for a boundary in the penultimate over.
“Sometimes lot of emotions are going on, but you understand that you are playing a tough game, so sometimes in the heat of the moment mistakes can happen. There’s always a chance of coming back till the game ends. So I try not to show emotions a lot because I’m also a fielder, I have also dropped catches.”Jasprit Bumrah
Rohit Sharma who was alongside Bumrah on the stage, also narrated a close incident that got his emotions triggered.
“When Malinga threw that overthrow, in which Ishan Kishan got MS out, I got a little emotional there. I was kind of little frustrated, because on that kind of pitch we knew every run mattered to us. We didn’t want to give them any easy runs,” he said.
‘He (Malinga) threw the ball unnecessarily, the single was easily completed, there was no need of that throw. Luckily Ishan Kishan was standing there and he came running through quickly and got that crucial run out. You could see on the giant screen, firstly I was quite angry and then I celebrated, it was two emotions in one ball.’Rohit Sharma
When asked about the World Cup coming up this month and how and what are their plans to begin prepping for the big one, Rohit said, “We knew as soon as IPL will get over, the focus will shift on the World Cup. But we’ve got a few days before we embark on that flight to the UK. So we just want to relax, take some time off, enjoy, spend some time with family.”
“Most of the guys have been on the road for the last six-seven months. If you look at the calendar a lot of the guys have been playing continuous cricket. So it’s good to have some time off also and I am sure these five-six days that we have will probably do good than bad.” he concluded.
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