MI are not playing to potential: Rohit

Shreyas Iyer showed steely temperament while R Ashwin compensated his poor bowling effort with a final six as Delhi Capitals DC inched towards a toptwo finish beating Mumbai Indians MI by four wickets in an IPL match here on SaturdayChasing a modest 130 on a challenging Sharjah Stadium track DC made a rough weather of the chase but Iyer with a runaball 33 anchored the innings and added crucial unbroken 39run stand with Ashwin 20 not outNeeding just four runs from the last over Ashwin sealed the chase with five balls to spare as he hit a six off Krunal Pandya as the duo shared a matchdefining partnership consuming 36 balls The win took DC to 18 points from 12 gamesTough road aheadDejected MI skipper Rohit Sharma said his side is not playing to its potential as the defeat made their road to playoffs tougher The defending champions are placed seventh in the points table after five winsRohit Sharma PicAFPRohit counted himself among the batting failures this season as MI yet again settled for a belowpar score of 1297ldquoIf your batters arenrsquot going to post runs on the board it will be difficult to win games I personally accept that Wersquore not able to execute in the middle which is particularly disappointingrdquo Rohit saidldquoWe are not playing to our potential Hopefully in the next two games we will play the way we are known forrdquoAlso Read Mumbai Indians are not playing up to their potential says Rohit SharmaRohit said they knew that Sharjah ldquowill be a difficult venuerdquo and prepared in the best possible mannerldquoWe watched a lot of matches and itrsquos not the easiest venue to play and make a lot of runs We were well prepared and we knew what we had to dordquo he saidldquoWe knew it wasnrsquot a 170180 wicket but we knew it was a 140 wicket We just didnrsquot get the partnerships goingrdquoEarlier when star bowler Ashwin 141 was completely offcolour Axar 321 dismissed Quinton De Kock 19 Suryakumar Yadav 33 and Saurabh Tiwary 15 ensuring that runs were hard to come by in the middle oversAvesh shinesBut it was their uncapped Indian pacer Avesh Khan 315 who continued his dream run in the IPL and set it up for Capitals hurrying Rohit with sheer paceBrief scoresMI 1298 in 20 overs S Yadav 33 A Khan 315 A Patel 321 lost to DC 1326 in 191 overs S Iyer 33 R Pant 26 by 4 wicketsAlso Read IPL 2021 Hardik might struggle if pushed to bowl says MI coach JayawardeneThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliabilitsy and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever