Mumbai Indians won a thrilling final against Chennai at Hyderabad. Rohit Sharma gave the final over to Lasith Malinga, who was having a poor day in the lead up to that over. But, Malinga turned Rohit’s decision into a masterstroke by not allowing Chennai to cross the line. With two runs needed off the final delivery, the odds were stacked up against Mumbai but Malinga bowled a slower delivery, which trapped Shardul Thakur plumb infront and Mumbai won by a run.
Rohit revealed how he had pitted the downfall of Shardul Thakur. “The idea was to get the batsman out. So I know Shardul really well. I kind of understand where he wants to hit, so we decided together (Malinga and him) that we’ll go for that slower option, because knowing Shardul, he would try to play a big shot and there might be a chance that he might just sky it. Again, it could have gone either way,” said Rohit.
He added, “When the decision comes off, it looks all nice. It can backfire also. At that stage, I wanted to go with experience, with somebody who has been in such situation before. And Malinga has been in that situation a million times. So we backed him to do that.”