Kolkata Knight Riders’ Ajinkya Rahane injured during IPL Match Mumbai Indians vs Kolkata Knight Riders at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Sunday.
| Photo Credit: EMMANUAL YOGINI

KKR’s Coach Gautam Gambhir and MI’s Rohit Sharma during the practice session ahead of IPL game between KKR and Mumbai Indians at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Thursday.
| Photo Credit: EMMANUAL YOGINI

India captain and Mumbai Indians opener Rohit Sharma was forced to play as an impact sub in the IPL clash against Kolkata Knight Riders due to a “mild back stiffness”, said leg-spinner Piyush Chawla.

Playing as an impact sub, Rohit managed just 11 runs in 12 balls in the second innings during their 24-run loss against KKR, which has nearly put the five-time champions out of the IPL this year.

“He just had a mild back stiffness so it was just a precautionary thing,” Chawla told the media after the match here at the Wankhede Stadium.

Mumbai’s defeat was their eighth in 11 matches, essentially shutting the doors on the Hardik Pandya-led side and Chawla too conceded that it is only “pride” that they are left with to play for.

“For the pride and the reputation, because sometimes when you enter on the field, you don’t think whether you are going to qualify or you are not going to qualify,” he said.

“You have to play for your name and that’s what we are playing for,” he added.

Chawla pointed MI’s inability to attain momentum at any stage in this IPL as the reason behind their poor performance.

“You must have often heard about that T20 is all about momentum and just that we didn’t get that momentum going this season and it can happen to any team,” he said.

“It’s not like it’s happening to us for the first time or any other team for the second time. It can happen to anyone and it’s just that that momentum was not our way.”

The 35-year-old Chawla became IPL’s second leading wicket-taker when he went past Dwayne Bravo on Friday to take 184 wickets.

“It has been a beautiful journey because IPL started 17 years back and at that time nobody gave that much preference to the spinners, but now if you see that in top few wicket takers in India, especially all the spinners, Ashwin, Yuzhi, myself (are there), so it’s a good feeling,” he said.

Chawla also praised Manish Pandey for delivering in a pressure situation while playing his first game this season. Pandey (42) added 83 runs for the sixth wicket with Venkatesh Iyer (70) as KKR posted 169 allout in 19.5 overs.

“It was a good partnership and credit has to go to them because they batted beautifully. Well, T20 is something in which experience plays a big role, (which is) what we saw today.

“When Manish walked in, maybe if somebody walks in who must have played few games, he would have panicked that runs are not coming.

“But he read the situation and the way he handled the situation because if you see in starting, he was hardly going at run a ball. But later on, he knew that he has to stand there with Venky.”