Mumbai Indians slumped to yet another defeat in the ongoing Indian Premier League season, suffering a heartbreaking two-wicket loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru on Sunday.
In a thrilling contest that went down to the final ball, the five-time champions saw their last remaining hopes of reaching the playoffs come to an end. The loss at the hands of the defending champions is Mumbai's eighth defeat of the season and has left them lingering at the ninth place on the points tally.
It has been a season marred by absence of key players and lack of consistency from the players who got the chance to perform. While the players have rightly been criticised for their poor show, Sunday's defeat saw head coach Mahela Jayawardena be in the firing line as he addressed the media in the post-match press conference.
The 48-year-old addressed several issues surrounding the team right from the 'politics' of benching some of the struggling senior stars to the poor show by key players.
"The season is disappointing. We've had our opportunities, but we were not good enough. We were not consistent enough with the ball or the bat, and that showed in the margins. We were probably two or three wins away from being in the same group of contenders to get into the playoffs, but we didn't get those wins, and today was another classic example where we fell short," the former Sri Lankan captain said.
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"It's difficult for me to sum up a season right now; I have to give it some thought and figure out exactly what happened. But yeah, we were not good enough with our skills and execution this season," he added.
With the team desperate to taste success this season, they have shuffled their lineup frequently which isn't what the team has been known for. Jayawardene explained that most changes were forced.
"I don't think it was chopping and changing. What probably you guys didn't know is that we had a lot of injuries and a lot of niggles-guys getting injured or being unavailable. So, those were mostly forced changes. Tactically, we would have changed very few during the season. I would have loved to have our main core guys consistently out there. But there are no excuses. I think we had a quality squad. It's just that we had to put our hands up and say that we were not good enough overall. We just need to continue to play good cricket. The message to the boys is to continue to do that," he said.
Jayawardene also attributed skipper Hardik Pandya's absence to 'back spasm' issue. Pandya did not play against RCB. It was the second game in a row when Pandya did not feature in Mumbai's match-day squad.
The coach also had a word of encouragement for Suryakumar Yadav who has captained the side in Pandya's absence. The World Cup winning captain has had his issues compounded as he has to not only lead a fractured team but also simultaneously battle his poor form with the bat too. The T20 World Cup winning captain has amassed only 195 runs in 11 matches this campaign.
Jayawardene was asked if benching some of the out-of-form senior players had become a 'political decision', he ruled it out.
"I don't think it is," Jayawardene said when asked if it became a "political decision" to bench out-of-form senior players.
"When you know the quality, you know they're also trying to do their best. If I knew it was something to do with a lack of effort, I would have spoken to them, but the commitment and the effort they're putting in is unbelievable. With Ro getting injured and coming back to bat the way he did-all that sums it up.
"The core group is quite valuable for us; you can't just keep changing. We went with the trust and the confidence that we had in them. There was no reason for us to sideline them because they just came from a World Cup, and they had a really good World Cup, winning it and all that. As a unit, we haven't been good enough," he concluded.
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