Jayawardene laments MI's powerplay issues

Mumbai Indians head coach Mahela Jayawardene admitted that powerplays have been a concern for his side in this edition. While MI have lost four of their five matches this season, Monday's (April 8) defeat to Royal Challengers Bengaluru marked their first loss at home.

Invited to bat first, RCB racked up 73/1 in the first six overs, their highest ever powerplay total against MI. In contrast, the hosts could only manage a middling 54/2 in the context of the match.

"The powerplay is a concern for us with the ball and the bat," Mahela said after MI's 12-run defeat. "In the last few games as well, we were leaking too many runs with the ball in the powerplay and we are not getting the starts and losing wickets [with the bat].

"We got an early wicket today as well and then they counterpunched, played good shots and we didn't react well to that. These are the margins. And then they had the big sixth over [bowled by Deepak Chahar], which really hurt us. We didn't close the powerplay properly. With the bat as well, I thought we had a good start but just couldn't continue. We lost those two wickets and then we had to consolidate a little bit and lost a bit of momentum there. We had a few big overs in between even in the powerplay but we weren't in the game in that first 10 overs [during the chase].

"So the margins are small in this competition and we are not hitting our strides and that's a concern. We are playing good cricket, but not good enough."

MI also lost their previous game, a 12-run defeat in Lucknow, where a costly 69-run powerplay once again proved decisive. Despite Jasprit Bumrah's return for this match against RCB, the new ball was handed to Deepak Chahar, a swing bowler who hasn't had the best of seasons. Chahar has been leaking runs at 11.30 in powerplays this year, the second-worst economy among bowlers who have bowled more than five overs in that phase.

"I don't think chasing was the wrong decision, where we went wrong was with our execution with the ball where we could have controlled things much better," Mahela said. "I think we got two swing bowlers, we need to give them that opportunity first up and Booms [Jasprit Bumrah] was coming back from a three month layoff as well, so we just wanted to ease him into the competition.

"We need to understand that the skills were brilliant but there are areas for us to improve."

MI captain Hardik Pandya played a blinder, scoring 42 off 15 balls but in the end, it was not enough to chase down a mammoth target of 222.

"With the talent that we have we know we are always in the game," the MI head coach said. "We know that we just need to be patient and most of the guys are matchwinners. It's just that we're not getting that tempo going consistently. We had to settle down when we lost those early wickets because they also bowled well, they brought the two spinners who didn't miss much, they bowled well. And we built partnerships after that and then obviously once you hit that 10th-12th over mark, we knew we could give ourselves a chance and obviously when Hardik walked into bat, that was the conversation I had with him. I said try and see whether you can get three big overs in and that's what he delivered and then the momentum changed."

Being more "ruthless" is something Mahela had emphasized after the loss in Lucknow, and he reiterated the same following the defeat in Mumbai.

"I still back the senior pros and all the guys I put out there. I think they have the skill, it's just that we need to be a bit more ruthless," Mahela said.

"At times we're missing out on those one or two overs where we lose our discipline, with the bat as well as with the ball. So that's something that we need to rectify. Losing is not a great thing. I mean you start doubting yourself and sometimes a fresh face coming into this kind of situation might be even tougher for them without the experience. The guys who have the experience know how to handle tough situations and be mentally stronger. Going forward, that's something that we will bank on and make sure that we really focus on getting the group together and be positive and play the next game."