Rohit plays down Pollard spat

Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma on Friday defended his team-mate Kieron Pollard and said the ugly spat involving the West Indian and Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Mitchell Starc happened in the heat of the moment and won’t be repeated.

“We all have spoken to him. I thought whatever happened, happened in the heat of the game. Nobody wants to ruin the spirit of the game. It happened and we have spoken about it and we have to move forward now,” Sharma said on the eve of Mumbai Indians’clash against two-time winners Chennai Super Kings.

“Pollard is an aggressive player. He didn’t do anything purposely. As a captain it was my duty to explain or tell him what sort of behaviour you should have on field. We have had a word with him and he is okay with that. Hopefully he will not repeat such mistakes,” he told reporters.

The incident referred to was Pollard charging with the bat at Australian left-arm pacer Starc after the latter delivered the ball to him despite the batsman having backed off from the crease.

Starc was fined 50 per cent of his match fees while Pollard was fined 75 per cent.On Saturday’s game against Chennai, Sharma said it will be an intense contest between two top sides.

“We want to take this as another game. We don’t want to think too much about the opposition. We have played them so many times. We played against them in Dubai. We know what is their strength, what they don’t like to do on the field. We know all those things and we are going to discuss that.

“It is a very important game. They have got some match winners. So it is going to be a great contest between these two teams. Last time they were here, we beat them comprehensively. So we will try and do that again. Obviously it is a different team from what we had last year, so is their team,” he said.