Mumbai Indians (MI) bowling coach Shane Bond rued his team’s abject bowling display during a 55-run defeat to the Gujarat Titans (GT) in an IPL 2023 match here at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Tuesday.
MI suffered its second consecutive defeat and slipped to the seventh spot after as many games, while the GT stormed to the second spot with its fifth win.
For a second game in a row, Rohit Sharma’s bowlers lost the plot in the death overs after a decent opening with the ball. Last Saturday, MI conceded 96 runs in the last five overs against Punjab Kings at home to bowl the team backwards from a position of strength.
The inexperienced attack similarly allowed Gujarat’s middle-order firepower to drag the team from 101 for four to 207 for six – its highest IPL total – with 107 runs stemming from the last seven overs.
“It was like a repeat from the last game. We’re not executing what we need to. We’ve got pretty simple plans. Watching the way we bowl, we’ll bowl in an area, get hit and then very quickly change. That’s a disappointing thing. I thought that with (GT) at 100, we were right in the game, and then we just dished up freebies. We gave (David) Miller and (Abhinav) Manohar free hits, and once you give good players a chance to get in, they just take the game away.
“We talk a lot about making batters work really hard for their runs. But when you look at our season, there’s been one player in the lower order, in particular, who we’ve fed runs to,” Bond said as he reflected on the loss in a post-match press conference.
While Mumbai was restricted to 152 for nine with a clinical bowling performance in the chase, Bond said that it was imperative for his side to have restricted Gujarat to 180 to have stood a chance.
“If we could keep them to 180, it was going to be challenging in the first six overs. But we thought we could chase it down much like at Wankhede the other day, but we can’t keep asking our batting line-up to chase 210 every game,” the Kiwi accepted.
Bond commended the Titans’ bowling as it dismantled the cream of the MI batting within the first ten overs. While skipper Hardik Pandya and Mohammed Shami controlled the PowerPlay where MI could only muster 29 runs at the expense of Rohit, spinners Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmad scalped five wickets to derail the innings.
“We got an exhibition of how to bowl on that wicket in the first six overs, and the game was effectively over. We tried to ride the storm a little bit because the ball was moving around at a good pace. Hardik and Mohammed Shami didn’t give us any free balls to hit, so the score at the end of the PowerPlay was a reflection of the way they bowled
“Rashid came on, bowled back-of-a-length, and just gave us nothing to hit. They just executed things really well. We haven’t been able to put 10 overs together like that, even though we’ve been good in our first ten, but our last six, seven overs, in particular, have been pretty poor in the last couple of games,” Bond remarked.
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Rohit did not use Arjun Tendulkar in the death overs, and the bowling coach suggested the left-arm pacer’s 31-run over against Punjab last week could have played in the captain’s head. “It probably was a factor. And again, if you’re the captain, you bank on your experience at the back end. You rely on those international players to come in and get the job done. I think that’s what most captains do.”
Arjun finished with figures of 1/9 in two overs in the PowerPlay as MI’s overseas seam trio - Jason Behrendroff, Riley Meredith and Cameron Green - conceded 125 runs in 10 overs. Meredith, who replaced an unwell Jofra Archer in the starting XI was the most expensive, leaking 12.25 runs per over.
Bond was uncertain about Archer’s availability for Mumbai’s next game against the Rajasthan Royals on Sunday and said the team will rework its strategies over the next three days. “I don’t know whether he (Archer) will be available for the next match in terms of changes or plans. We haven’t had any time to sort of digest (the losses). When you’re losing, the natural thing that happens is you consider the balance of your team,” Bond admitted.
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