Lack of partnerships hurt us: Tendulkar

Struggling to digest the three-run defeat against Kings XI Punjab, Mumbai Indians captain Sachin Tendulkar said they were done in by the lack of partnerships in their IPL encounter yesterday. Chasing a modest victory target of 120, the Mumbai side finished 116 for seven with only JP Duminy (59) managing to salvage some pride. "After the first half, we thought we are in a good position to win the match but this was one of those games where pressure built up and we lost early wickets. All credit to Kings XI Punjab, they played really well," Tendulkar said. "To chase a target of 120, we needed 35-40 run partnerships. A couple of such partnerships and you are there. But it simply did not happen today and they kept pressure on us all along," he said. Kings XI captain Yuvraj Singh, who spend the last few overs outside the ground due to injury, admitted he was nervous and heaped praise on both Piyush Chawla and Yusuf Abdulla who bowled the final two overs. "I was really nervous today," Yuvraj said. "We wanted to bowl Piyush in the 19th over to get the left-hander out. The wicket had turned slow and therefore we used more spinners. Yusuf bowled a very good last over too," he said.