MI coach laments losing the GT game from a winning position as one bad over eventually became the difference between winning and losing.
MI coach laments the fact that his side let the game slip from a rather advantageous position against Gujarat Titans last night.
Mumbai Indians (MI) had a few alternatives on where to toss the ball when the rain stopped and Gujarat Titans (GT) needed 15 to win off six balls. Only two had been bowled by Deepak Chahar. Only one had been bowled by Hardik Pandya. Between them, the spinners Karn Sharma and Will Jacks had only claimed three wickets.
It was between Chahar and Hardik since the bowler had to be quick, and MI went with Chahar. In a later explanation, MI head coach Mahela Jayawardene stated that Chahar was “our main bowler” at the time, but Katey Martin was certain that “you always want your skipper to step up” in these circumstances.
However, MI appeared to have decided that it would be Chahar before the team left for that final over following the most recent weather delay, which moved the Tuesday game to Wednesday. In a seesawing match, GT was home off the final ball after a four and a six were scored and a no-ball was bowled.
“Deepak did that job for us when Booms [Jasprit Bumrah] was not there [for the first few games of the season],” Jayawardene said at the post-match press conference after MI’s streak of wins ended at six. “He was good, our main bowler. It’s easier for you to ask me that question and for me to say, ‘yeah, maybe Hardik’. Had Hardik gone for three sixes, you might have asked me why you didn’t bowl Deepak. I don’t like to go to that.”
“Throughout the game, we made some good decisions with the ball when we had to attack. Deepak’s execution – a couple of balls he missed, they hit some good shots, we bowled a no-ball as well on top of that – and we still came down to the last ball.
“It was not the decision; it was the execution. That’s where we lost the game. My thinking is we lost the game when we had control of it and that was disappointing.”