Mumbai Indians skipper Ricky Ponting said that Sachin Tendulkar and Rohit Sharma "felt" that 161 was a good score on the Feroze Shah Kotla track but poor bowling upfront changed the equations in their IPL match against Delhi Daredevils here today.
"I don't think we were 30 runs short. When Sachin and Rohit were batting, they felt that 160-165 was a pretty good score on this track. They felt that it was a nice even surface which was a bit on the slower side. So at the break, we were happy to defend 161," Ponting said at the post-match press conference.
"When Virender and Mahela challenged us, but then our bowlers did not execute the plan. The line and lengths that we talked about were not maintained and before we knew, it was 60 off six overs. We tried different bowlers and different combinations. We have to give credit to (Delhi) openers but I must admit that we bowled far too many loose deliveries first up," he said.
Ponting rued that his players could not stop Sehwag from getting a blazing start.
"With Virender, you have to put in pressure from the start and stop him from scoring. If you can do that, then he tries to play some shots trying to get out of pressure. But today, we bowled too many loose balls at the start. Before, we could realise, he was 30 not out and so was Mahela."
Asked about his own batting slot, Ponting said, "It can be anywhere between No 1 and No 7. We needed to give our form players Dinesh and Rohit chance to bat up the order as we were only 24 from six overs. May be, it would have been better had Pollard been sent a little earlier but Rohit batted beautifully again."