XtraTime Web Desk: Royal Challengers Bangalore had the most power packed batting in last few seasons of Indian Premier League (IPL), according to Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma. The MI captain in a live instagram chat with David Warner on Friday revealed he and his team always had to plan more than any other team to counter RCB’s powerful batting line up.
“Honestly speaking, we plan for RCB more than any other team because of their batting line-up. Their batting line-up is just unreal man. Our team meeting goes up to around couple of hours,” said Rohit.
With the likes of Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers in their ranks, very few can question the strength of the Bangalore based franchise.
Sunrisers Hyderabad Captain David Warner too agreed with Rohit that RCB has the best batting line in the cash rich league for the last few seasons.
Both Rohit and David Warner hoped for IPL 2020 to start sometime in September and October, depending entirely on the situation arising out of COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Rohit, “IPL is likely to happen at some stage but I have no idea what date or month it would be. Once the situation settles down a bit, then it will be a better idea to judge whether it is likely to happen or not.”
Rohit, who led Mumbai to four IPL titles making it the most successful franchise spoke about the 2014 edition when they lost the first five matches but went on to win the tournament. The Hitman revealed the influence of former Australian captain Ricky Ponting on the youngsters in the MI team and how he motivated the entire team to bounce back.
“We were going through a very tough time. We were in Dubai where we lost all the five games. Luckily for me I had Ponting around. What an impactful person he is when he is around the group. He was motivating the youngsters. He was not worried about the senior members in the squad. His idea was to not let the youngsters drift away after that hiccup. Once we returned to Mumbai, things started changing. I remember him giving a pep talk ahead of our first match in India,” said Rohit.
The MI skipper also pointed out that all the teams this season looked perfectly balanced after the auction and this would’ve been the closest had it gone ahead as scheduled.