The one major aspect that is missing currently in the Mumbai Indians team is the lack of “collective performance” and hence the five-time champions have had a disappointing start to their IPL 2022 campaign, MI skipper Rohit Sharma said after their loss versus RCB on Saturday.
This is the fourth time that MI have lost their first four games of the season, and although on two of those previous three occasions they have made it into playoffs and even won the title in 2015, Rohit believes the team needs to click collectively for them to stay alive in the playoff race this season.
“I have always spoken of collective performance both from bat and ball, that seems to be missing at the moment. Once that comes through, I think we should be good,” Sharma said after the loss vs RCB.
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It was another middle-order malfunction from MI batters as, after a fifty-run opening partnership between Rohit and Ishan Kishan, they collapsed to 79/6, from where Suryakumar Yadav, for the second time in a row, had to drag them to a respectable total, which in the end didn’t prove at all difficult for the chasing side.
Rohit Sharma, who scored a quickfire 26 off 15 balls, asserted that the batting has been a major worry this season as they haven’t been able to put up defendable totals. He hoped that other batters could take a leaf out of Yadav’s book on batting masterclass.
“Just got 26, I wanted to bat as long as possible, but unfortunately I got out at the wrong time. We were hitting that partnership, we just got off to a 50-run partnership, got out at the wrong time, that is something that’s hurting us a little bit.
“Definitely not a 150 pitch, Surya showed us if you bat sensibly, you can get more than what you got. Lot of credit to Surya at least to get us to 150, but we knew that it wasn’t going to be enough.
“We want some of our batters to bat as deep as possible. That is one thing we are looking at, if we get runs on the board, there’s something for the bowlers to do. In the last two games, we were not able to do that.
“Last game we got 160, this game we got 150-odd, on a pitch like that, it’s not enough. When you come up against an opposition like that, it’s never going to be enough,” the distraught MI skipper expressed himself.
MI now sit at the 9th spot, just above CSK on run rate, who also have suffered four defeats in as many matches. Both the IPL giants – who have combined won 9 of the 14 titles – are on the brim of being eliminated from the playoff race.
