Oppositions should fear coming to Mumbai: Rohit

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Their “fortress” was almost breached by a spirited Kings XI Punjab and relieved to have avoided the debacle by a narrow margin, Mumbai Indian skipper Rohit Sharma said his team would now focus on making its home ground a den where Oppositions would be scared to play in the IPL.

“Home games are very important because you don’t know what you are going to get outside. You have to win as many as possible when you play at home and we are trying to make full use of that,” Sharma said after the four-run win over Punjab at the Wankhede Stadium last night. “We want to make it our fortress. We want to make it our den and people should fear coming to Mumbai and playing,” he added.

Rohit played a captain’s knock of unbeaten 79 off just 39 balls but the young Mumbai Indians skipper admitted that he was nervous when Punjab almost chased down their total of 174. “I wasn’t worried but I was nervous because as a captain you would be obviously. But I just wanted to hold my nerves. I didn’t want to make any mistakes on the field. But it worked out pretty well.

“I rotated the bowlers well, which was the key. At the end I am happy that we won,” Sharma said. Sharma said the dew factor came into play in the second innings and the bowlers found it difficult with the wet ball.

“The dew comes a lot over here. It is not easy. Spinners find it difficult to grip the ball but our spinners bowled well. Dew makes a lot of difference but we still defended the total of 174. Whether you win by 4 runs or 50 runs, a win is a win,” he said.

Kings XI Punjab came close to winning the match despite losing early wickets but captain David Hussey felt the Mumbai spinners took the match away from them.