New Delhi, April 4 Mumbai Indians' stand-in skipper Suryakumar Yadav praised Sameer Rizvi's brilliant batting on Saturday, while admitting that his team was short of a par score on a decent Kotla wicket.
"I think it was a decent wicket. We expected it to be a little slower, but from a batting perspective, we were a bit short – 15-20 runs, but I don't want to take any credit away from the bowlers and their batters also batted really well in the second innings," he said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
Asked about Sameer Rizvi, who smashed 90 off 51 balls as an impact substitute, Suryakumar said: "Absolutely, I mean, at 7 for 2, someone coming in like that and batting the way he batted, I think a lot of credit goes to him. He never let us get into the game. We tried our best to follow everything that was happening in the bowling department, but we couldn't come back," the MI stand-in captain said.
He said the pitch played true and was the same for both sides.
"I think it was quite similar. It didn't change much, but the way they batted, I think they batted very well. They understood the conditions really well in the second innings and batted beautifully. So it was a tough pill to swallow, what might have been a good score.
"I mean, when you're batting first, there's nothing like thinking about the score. You just keep batting, understand the stats, what's good, what has been good here, but we felt 180-185 was a good score."
"We felt short by 15-20 runs. I think me and Naman both got out at the wrong time, otherwise we would have at least gotten a par score. I mean absolutely, see, there will be days like this when you try and it won't work, but we will go back to the drawing board, work hard and come back in the next few days," he said.
Player of the match Sameer Rizvi was delighted with his back-to-back match-winning performances as an impact player.
"I've worked a lot. I've worked on my weaknesses. I wasn't as good against fast bowlers. I try to play according to the situation. I took time, got set and then played my shots.
"I tried to watch the ball as long as possible. If you score runs here, you get a lot of confidence and opportunities for us youngsters," he said.