Head coach Mahela Jayawardene admitted that Mumbai Indians were ‘not good enough’ this season after a dramatic two-wicket loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru crushed their hopes of reaching the IPL playoffs.
The defeat, MI’s eighth in 11 matches, once again highlighted the inconsistency that troubled the five-time champions throughout the tournament.
“It’s disappointing,” Jayawardene said after the match. “We had our chances during the season, but we just weren’t good enough. We lacked consistency with both bat and ball, and in a competition like this, those small margins make a huge difference.”
Mumbai appeared to have the game under control at several stages but failed to finish strongly after handing the final over to young all-rounder Raj Angad Bawa, who was bowling for the first time in his four-year IPL career.
Defending a modest target, Bawa started nervously with a wide and a no-ball. Although he managed to dismiss Romario Shepherd, he followed it up with another wide before conceding the match-winning six to Bhuvneshwar Kumar as RCB sealed victory on the final delivery.
Jayawardene explained that the team had limited bowling options left at that stage.
“All our bowlers had completed their quota of overs, so we didn’t have an experienced option available,” he said. “We had a couple of spinners left — one was Raghu Sharma, who hadn’t bowled yet, and the other option could have been Allah Ghazanfar.” He added that stand-in captain Suryakumar Yadav had shown faith in the youngster.
“Suryakumar backed Raj. He’s a talented bowler and we’ve seen in practice that he can execute yorkers and wide deliveries effectively,” Jayawardene said.
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The former Sri Lankan captain also sympathised with Bawa for struggling under intense pressure in such a crucial moment.
“The wides and no-ball happened under pressure, and that’s understandable for a young player,” he said. “Still, I was happy with the fight we showed. It was a game decided by fine margins, and perhaps we should have executed better at the end.”
Jayawardene also dismissed suggestions that the Raipur pitch was responsible for MI posting only 166 despite being in a strong position earlier in the innings.
“We knew 170-180 would have been a competitive total, and we were moving towards that,” he said. “But then we lost a couple of wickets around the 14th or 15th over — Naman got out, then Jacks lost his wicket before the timeout. Those were avoidable mistakes.”
The MI coach revealed that injuries and fitness issues to key players significantly disrupted the team’s campaign and prevented them from fielding a settled combination consistently.
“What people probably don’t know is that we dealt with a lot of injuries and niggles throughout the season,” he said. “Some players weren’t available at important stages. Ideally, I would have liked our core group to play together consistently. But those are not excuses. We still had a quality squad, and overall we simply weren’t good enough.”
Another major talking point during Mumbai’s poor season was the continued backing of senior players despite inconsistent performances, particularly captain Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav.
However, Jayawardene defended the experienced core, insisting their dedication and effort could not be questioned. “No, I don’t think it’s difficult to continue backing them,” he said. “The commitment and hard work they’ve shown has been unbelievable. Our core group is extremely valuable to us, and you can’t keep changing players all the time.”
He also pointed out that many of the senior players had recently been part of India’s successful World Cup campaign. “They had a fantastic World Cup and achieved something special there,” Jayawardene said. “It’s just that as a team unit this season, we haven’t performed well enough.”
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