Rohit Sharma: Our bowlers tried their best

Rohit Sharma at the press conference

Mumbai, April 18 (IANS) Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma said that his bowlers tried their best against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) but nothing worked out as some excellent batting by the CSK openers took the game away from the hosts in their Indian Premier League (IPL) encounter at the Wankhede Stadium here.

"Our bowlers tried their best but nothing worked out for them. They leaked out so many runs in the first six overs. Chennai openers Dwayne Smith and Brendon McCullum batted really well. They took the game away from us," Rohit said post Friday night's loss.

Opting to bat, Mumbai got off to a poor start after losing openers Lendl Simmons (5) Parthiv Patel (0) and Corey Anderson (4) in the first four overs. But a late assault by Kieron Pollard (64) and a timely knock by Rohit (50) helped the home side post a challenging 183/7.

In reply, CSK reached the target with six wickets and 20 balls to spare, resulting in Mumbai Indians' fourth consecutive loss. Mumbai bowlers didn't have the best evening, with all of them finishing with an economy rate of more than nine per over.

The team's pace spearhead Lasith Malinga finished with figures of 4-0-40-1. When asked about Malinga's poor performance in IPL 2015, Rohit defended the Sri Lankan.

"He knows himself. We had a chat with him. He himself was a little down. But a bowler like Malinga, it's just about one game. In 2013 when we won the IPL, the first 7-8 games he was not there. But we knew the kind of bowler Malinga is and what he has done over the years for Sri Lanka and for Mumbai Indians," said the skipper.

"He came up with a winning spell against Chennai in the final then. So we believe in him. It's just the matter of one game that he can get whatever he wants from that game. We all know his strengths."

A disappointed Rohit said they have tried everything possible in the last four games to get the combination right.

"It you are not winning then there is something wrong. You have to get the combination right. We tried everything possible in the last four games. We played five bowlers, changed in the batting order. I don't know anything else we could do to get the combination right," said the Mumbaikar.

When asked about all-rounder Corey Anderson's promotion to No.3 from No.5 in the batting order, the 27-year-old said, "We wanted to try something different. Whatever we did in the last three games didn't work out so we wanted to try. We were desperate to get that first win.

"As a team we thought this is the best way to go forward. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Last time Corey batted here, he got 95 and won the game for us. When things don't work out it looks a bit ugly."

New Zealand's left-arm medio Mitchell McClenaghan is yet to play for the Mumbai franchise. Reacting to the same, Rohit said, "McClenaghan is a very talented bowler. We actually thought of getting him in this game, but we wanted to make the batting little stronger. We have not been batting well in the first six overs.

"Lendl was the best option to go with, considering that fact the good run he had last year. So Wankhede would have been a better place for him to start that again. We thought about that and went ahead with that. We have to sit again and look for our right combination."