Mumbai were shot out by Delhi for a mere 92 runs and the visitors overhauled the target with 31 balls to spare to register a seven-wicket win and Harbhajan laid the blame on the poor show by his top-order batsmen.
"Yes, the score was low. There was some bad selection of shots. We lost lot of wickets in the first six overs to be 20-odd for two which was the main cause of not achieving whatever we wanted to on the score front. We lost the game in the first six overs," said the 31-year-old off-spinner in the post-match press conference here last night.
"It was difficult for us to score runs as we continued losing wickets. We lost Dinesh Karthik early on. (Openers) Davy Jacobs and (Richard) Levi did not give us the start we were looking for. Rohit (Sharma) was looking good, but unfortunately he also got out. We were not able to rotate the strike and also giving away wickets. That was the turning point in the game," he explained.
The home team, put into bat, slumped to five for two in 3.1 overs and then slid further into the hole to be 44 for six after 10.2 overs before recovering a bit. But the final tally on a good, bouncy Wankhede Stadium track was well below par for the course.
Harbhajan, who top-scored with 33 from 22 balls, stopped short of calling it reckless batting even though poor shots were played and also a foolish attempt for a non-existent run led to Ambati Rayudu's dismissal.
"What do you mean by that (reckless batting)?" he shot back. MORE PTI SSR PDS