Mumbai, Apr 5: Mumbai Indians skipper Harbhajan Singh today said that his side is hoping that Sachin Tendulkar is available to play their IPL game against Pune Warriors here tomorrow as the x-ray report did not show anything wrong with his injured hand.
“Nothing has come in the x-ray. We are hopeful he will play tomorrow,” said Harbhajan at the pre-match press conference today.
Tendulkar got hit on his right hand index finger when he fended at a short, rising ball from Chennai Super Kings speedster Doug Bollinger in the IPL 5 opener in Chennai yesterday and retired hurt.
Talking about the match against Sourav Ganguly-led Warriors tomorrow, Harbhajan said their opponents were a good outfit even without India's World Cup hero Yuvraj Singh who is recovering after taking treatment for a rare form of cancer.
“Pune Warriors are a very good side and we don't want to take anything for granted. Without Yuvraj they are obviously slightly lesser (strong). But they still have the likes of Ganguly, Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey We just want to concentrate what we have and what we can do,” said the feisty off-spinner.
He said the eight-wicket win over the Chennai Super Kings yesterday was a good beginning but the team is to move forward.
“Always good to win your first game, but that is over.We want to move ahead. Like in Chennai we need to start well and hopefully finish the game here tomorrow on the same note,” he said.
Stating that captaining the team was challenging, Harbhajan again thanked Tendulkar, whom he replaced at the helm after the champion batsman relinquished the job before the start of the tournament, for the support he has been giving to him right through his career.
