IPL 2016: Martin Guptill feels Rohit Sharma is a "world-class" player

New Zealand’s top-order batsman Martin Guptill showered praise Indian batsman Rohit Sharma during a recent interview. The Kiwi batsman, who is playing in his first ever IPL for the defending champions Mumbai Indians called his captain a “world-class” player.

Guptill was brought in by the Mumbai-based franchise as a replacement of injured West Indian batsman Lendl Simmons. However, the aggressive opener didn’t have the best of starts to his IPL career as he scored only 2 runs in his debut against Sunrisers Hyderabad.

The 29-year-old cricket got another chance when he was named in the playing XI for a must-win game against Delhi Daredevils on Sunday. The right-handed batsman grabbed the opportunity with both hands as he played a sheet-anchor innings of 48, helping his team put up a big score of 206 on the scoreboard.

In a recent interview, the Auckland-born player talked about the opportunity. He said, “It’s my second game of the tournament, I’ve been sitting on the sidelines for most of the time. It’s tough but we’ve played enough cricket to know that we have to sit out for a few games. You’ve still got to prepare and we did that, luckily for us, it came off.”

Guptill, who opened the innings alongside Mumbai captain Rohit Sharma at Visakhapatnam and the Blackcaps cricketer was all praises for the stylish right-handed batsman. Guptill said, “Obviously Rohit is a world-class player and he makes it look so easy, just how easily he hits the ball and some of the shots he plays are pretty amazing. Hopefully, I can keep my place in the team for the next game and watch him a bit more.”

The Kiwi carried on with his sheet-anchor role after Rohit Sharma was dismissed, forming a good partnership with the youngster Krunal Pandya. Speaking of the match-winning second wicket partnership between him and the southpaw said, “Krunal would keep telling me to get him on and he’ll play his shots, but if it was in my area to still have a go. It worked pretty well and we fed off each other extremely well”.

Krunal played a sublime innings of 86 off just 37 balls which helped Mumbai to post a big target. Talking about Krunal’s knock Guptill said, “I did have the best seat in the house, he played some extremely good shots and hit the ball extremely well so being out there I was able to see it up close and personal and luckily I didn’t have to run too many and get more tired than I already was.”

Mumbai Indians have a big group of players and coaching stuff from New Zealand. Apart from Guptill, Mumbai have Tim Southee, Corey Anderson, Mitchell McClenaghan and bowling coach Shane Bond in their ranks.

Guptill concluded, “It is a little like being at home obviously, playing a lot with Tim and Corey and a bit with Bondy as well, he obviously coached New Zealand a bit and hence we share a strong bond. Having a few other guys in the team that you know well helped me settle in quite quickly and become a part of the team.”