The Mumbai Indians did not have the best of times in the first phase of the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League as the defending champions have lost three and won two games out of their five games so far in this season.
Discussing the latest loss against the Punjab Kings, the batting coach Robin Singh said that the men in blue were short of runs on the board. He reminded how well the Kings batted in the same surface to win by a big margin of nine wickets as the surface was not so difficult to bat on. He said that the team has failed to adapt and hence could not score 150-160 runs on the board which would have kept them in the game.
“We did not get enough runs. I still feel it is not a bad wicket to bat on. You saw how they batted and won the game by 9 wickets. It is just the application that is missing in our batting. If you get 150-160 on this wicket then you are always in the game, that is something we failed to do in the last two games,” Singh said in a video posted by the Mumbai Indians on its Twitter timeline.
The Mumbai Indians were to play the first five matches of the 14 matches they are slated to play this season in Chennai before the caravan was to move towards the north of the country in Delhi.
Robin Singh said that the team expected the first part of the campaign to be a tougher challenger as the pitches at the MA Chidambaram Stadium were not to be of their liking or as they have been used to playing on.
However, Singh added that winning two out of the first five games is not a bad result although they expected to win at least three out of them. He also said that the Chennai leg of the campaign will energise the group in pursuit of adaptation as they will be trying to move on from the losses and begin preparing for the remainder of the tournament.
“The Chennai leg, we knew, was going to be a tough leg. The wickets are probably not to our liking or didn’t suit us as what we’re used to. But I think that’s part of the game. We have to adapt, we have to leave this behind. This is only one part of the tournament. We have another three phases, for which I think we just need to pick ourselves up. Winning two games is not that bad. We were probably looking at three wins barest minimum. But we didn’t get there,” Singh added.
Like in Chennai, the Mumbai Indians will now play their next five matches at the Feroz Shah Kotla ground in Delhi against the Rajasthan Royals, Chennai Super Kings, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders.