A defeat against the Mumbai Indians on Wednesday has prompted Mahela Jayawardene to call on the team to be more “ruthless” and “finish games off”.
A ruthless mentality is needed by Mahela Jayawardene’s Mumbai Indians, who have lost their first three games of the IPL season, says the team’s head coach. The disappointing Mumbai Indians fell to the Kolkata Knight Riders by five wickets on Wednesday night, their third loss in a row. After losing to Delhi Capitals and Rajasthan Royals, Rohit Sharma’s team had a poor start to the season. It’s true that we’ve been competitive up to this point, but Jayawardene admitted that his team hasn’t been ruthless enough to end games.
When things get off to a bad start, “we need to look at the positives,” he said. Despite our best efforts, we are unable to secure victories in the final stages of matches. We were in it for all three games, but we couldn’t win them.
With the ball, “So these are problems, especially in the back end under pressure, where we aren’t executing.” Because our execution has been so terrible, we need to improve it, he continued.
Pat Cummins, regarded as one of the best cricketers in the world today, struck a record-equaling fastest fifty to help KKR to a five-wicket victory over MI.
Jayawardene criticized MI bowlers for their tactics in the face of Cummins.
The extra change-ups that we bowled against Cummins were probably unnecessary. There are a lot of small boundaries on the leg side, so Pat should have no problem hitting slog sweeps,” she explained.
Even after a dismal opening 10 overs, Sri Lanka’s middle order was hailed for getting the team back on level terms.
The Sri Lankans were aware of their opponents’ strategy of using their spinners at the end of the innings, so they had to make sure they had players who could handle them, Jayawardene said. Suryakumar Yadav was one of those players, he said. “It was a tough wicket, there was step bounce and there was a little bit in it,” Jayawardene said.
In the end, we got a little stuck, which put us behind schedule, and we had to get that par score. With some large overs and a 13th-over plan, we were able to reach a par score.” According to the coach, MI needs to pick up their winning ways quickly if they want to stay in the competition.
While it’s tough to lose three games in a row, we need to focus on getting a win so we can establish a winning habit. Jayawardene stated, “We simply need to make sure we are still in it halfway through the season.”
