Harbhajan Singh saw a silver lining in the allround show of Jagadeesha Suchith in Mumbai Indians' 18-run defeat to Kings XI Punjab in the IPL-8 match at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday.
“Suchith is a very good prospect. Not many have seen him in action. He played against us in the Ranji Trophy final (last year). I straightaway told Rahul (Sanghvi) ‘here’s a good spinner’. To be honest, we did not know he could bat as well; he came in and started hitting the ball. He’s a brilliant player, we will see a lot more of him. Though he bowled well, unfortunately, his figures show otherwise. In fact, he did not bowl any loose balls. It was his first (IPL) game and he had a great outing.”
What went down well with the crowd late in the evening was Harbhajan’s lashing out at the KXIP bowlers.
“It’s good to be there, hitting those sixes and trying my best to get close to the game. But unfortunately I could not finish the game. Anyway there will be a lot of opportunities. We lost too many wickets upfront; one partnership could have got us out of trouble.
“They bowled really well with the new ball. It was tough. The first six overs have been our strong point, but we gave away too many, Viru (Sehwag) was going strong as well. We pulled things back by bowling some spin. “The target of 178 was a score we could have chased. Losing Rohit Sharma proved to be a setback; he’s our best batsman. When he scores runs, we chase easily and no target is too big.
“From 25 for four, 46 for five and 59 for six, we were always chasing; glad that we came close to the target in the end.”
Man-of-the-match skipper George Bailey, whose 32-ball unbeaten 61 provided substance to KXIP’s innings, said: “Obviously, there was going to be one disappointed team tonight. So it was nice to be on the winning side.
“It was beautiful striking by ‘Bhajji’, but I felt we deserved to win by more (runs). We bowled so well at the start. It would have been nice to have made it a 50-run victory.
“Having said that our bowlers would have learnt from how they bowled and what happened in the end. Sandeep Sharma appears to have picked up a yard in pace; that’s really pleasing.”
