Mumbai Indians’ 103-run defeat to Chennai Super Kings at the Wankhede felt brutal in the moment and looks even harsher on the points table. Two wins from seven matches leave MI in the bottom half as the IPL takes its brief mid-season pause. Head coach Mahela Jayawardene did not bother dressing things up.
“If you analyse the seven games, yes, there was a hole in our bowling and we got some fresh faces in there,” he said soon after Thursday night’s loss. “[The win against Gujarat Titans in] Ahmedabad looked good. Again, here, I thought in patches we bowled well. It is just execution-wise, consistency-wise, I think we are one of the teams that has given the highest number of big overs – 18-plus overs, if you look at the half-season.”
He is right about the numbers. MI’s economy rate sits at 10.52, the worst in the competition, and only two sides have taken fewer wickets. Concede one “big over” – Jayawardene means anything above 18 runs – and you can still claw back; leak several and any chase, never mind 208, turns almost impossible. “That number puts us in a very bad position for us to even claw back into a game when you give that 20-plus [over], it’s tough,” he added.
Injury and illness have shredded the preferred attack, yet selection has also looked muddled. Trent Boult began the season with the new ball but a lean run forced a rethink. Jasprit Bumrah, usually saved for the end, is now taking the first or second over. “Yes, we are trying a few things,” Jayawardene explained. “Booms [Bumrah] we thought we needed some experience up front to take the new ball, because where we were lacking was we were not setting a tone with the first over itself. We were going for ten, 12, 13 runs. So, let’s grab that back. So, we’ve tried a few things.”
So far, those tweaks have helped only in patches. On Thursday CSK were 73 for 2 after six overs; MI replied with 29 for 3, their lowest powerplay total against these opponents. Akeal Hosein’s left-arm spin, drifting into right-handers under lights, tied up the top order. The chase never quickened.
“Once you lose a match like that, it’s difficult to even analyse it,” Jayawardene said. “But probably where we lost both the powerplays with the ball and with the bat, we just couldn’t get to the game. We had a great game in Ahmedabad, I thought we found some rhythm, but again, we lost that rhythm.”
Short bursts of excellence are not uncommon in T20, yet MI’s extremes have been stark. They thumped Gujarat by eight wickets then conceded 200-plus twice in four days. Younger bowlers such as left-armer Himmat Bhagat – talented but light on experience – have been asked to deliver at the death. It has sometimes worked, often not, and the coach acknowledged that familiar mixture of promise and growing pain.
What next? The five-day gap is handy. Bumrah’s workload can be monitored, Boult’s rhythm reassessed, and Suryakumar Yadav’s fitness – he missed the CSK match through illness – should improve. The batting, even without Surya, still reads Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Tilak Varma, Tim David and Hardik Pandya; power, at least on paper, is not the main concern.
With the ball Mumbai have options but little settled structure. Death-over specialist Romario Shepherd has bowled only 11 overs in total. Piyush Chawla’s leg-spin remains steady yet unthreatening on flatter pitches. A clear plan for the first six overs – who takes the new ball, who attacks, who defends – looks priority No.1 before their next outing.
Nobody inside the camp is giving up. Pandya said earlier in the week that “momentum in this league can flip very quickly”, and it often does. One strong performance can breathe life into an ailing campaign; Jayawardene has lived through that as a player and now as a coach. At the same time, the statistics he quoted are unforgiving. Fixing them, especially the early-innings leaks, is essential if Mumbai want to squeeze into the play-offs.
“I don’t think the wicket played badly, probably it stayed the same. Once you are 7 [11] for 3, you are always going to get pulled back,” Jayawardene concluded, summing up a night when nothing really clicked. The rhythm he keeps mentioning has to return soon – preferably in the first six overs with both bat and ball – or MI may find the tournament sprinting away while they are still searching for their stride.
