On Saturday (2nd April), Mumbai Indians (MI) were defeated by Rajasthan Royals (RR) with a margin of 23 runs in their second match of the IPL 2022 season at the DY Patil Stadium.
The Royals put up a score of 193/8 on the board owing to Jos Buttler's stunning century and some outstanding contributions from skipper Sanju Samson (30 off 21 balls) and Shimron Hetmyer (35 off 14 balls).
In response, MI lost the first two wickets for just 40 runs (Rohit Sharma and Anmolpreet Singh) before Ishan Kishan and Tilak Verma put up a strong partnership before the former was dismissed. After that, the batting line-up lost momentum and continued to lose wickets at regular intervals.
Jayawardena, the coach of Mumbai Indians, believes his team should have chased down the target against Rajasthan Royals but they were unable to do so.
“I think in the chase we timed it really well. And we had one bad over with the bat where we lost two of our main batters. So we could not actually finish the game properly. It’s early but we really have to be able to finish it off properly," the Mumbai coach said.
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Mahela was also concerned about his team's bowling, stating that while it is good, it falls short at critical times in the game.
“I think it was a very disappointing outing for us. Three bad overs with the balls, we gave away 70 runs, which means we bowled 17 overs on a really good wicket for 120 odd runs. Skills wise we are very very good but it’s just those three bad overs," he said.
“So these are the discussions we will have with the group. As a coach I am happy that skills are good, the temperament is good, the awareness of the game is very very good, but it’s just lack of those crucial moments which is getting us down. So we make sure that we will not make these mistakes again," the Sri Lankan legend added.
The five-time champions have now lost their second match in a row. They will face KKR in their next match on April 6.
(WITH IANS INPUTS)
