Ahmedabad, June 2: Following his side’s loss to Punjab Kings (PBKS) in the Qualifier two and their consequent elimination, Mumbai Indians (MI) coach Mahela Jayawardene expressed happiness with his team’s campaign and added that a few mistakes cost them.
Five-time champions MI ended their IPL campaign with a crushing loss to PBKS by five wickets at Ahmedabad on Sunday night, booking a title clash between PBKS and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). Speaking after the match in the presser, Jayawardene spoke on the mistakes which cost their side a chance at the record-breaking sixth title.”
I think we probably left a bit of runs on the park with the bat and we lost our way. Those back-to-back wickets probably slowed us down a little bit, but I still thought 200 was a good score in a qualifier,” said Jayawardene as quoted by MI’s official website.”
The pressure picked up after those wickets as well up front (of Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma), and I think a few mistakes cost us.
The execution was not up to what our standard is,” MJ stated.Jayawardene said that the wicket played well in both innings and credited his team for starting off well and staying positive despite the rain delaying the action.”
We put them under pressure and had two good top-order partnerships. We were going at 140 at one stage scoring 10 runs an over and, then those two back-to-back wickets probably slowed us down a little bit.
I thought 200 was a decent score on this wicket on this ground. It’s just that we did not execute well.” said the coach.
On an up and down campaign, which saw the team bounce back from one win in first four games to register a six-match unbeaten streak to qualify for playoffs and beat Gujarat Titans (GT) in a high-scoring eliminator, he said, “I think it was a good campaign for us… the way we started and how we regrouped as a team and played some really good cricket is commendable.
“We had our opportunities, getting to the playoffs and we had a few good games first up. And even today, I thought we played some good cricket except for [Punjab] Kings playing better cricket than us. They executed that pretty well,” he concluded.
As Mumbai Indians bow out of IPL 2025, Mahela Jayawardene’s measured reflections sum up a campaign that was as turbulent as it was thrilling.
