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Mumbai Indians crashed to their third straight defeat in IPL 2022 on Wednesday after losing to Kolkata Knight Riders by five wickets in Pune. The five-time IPL champions were blown away by a hurricane 56 off 15 balls by KKR's Pat Cummins. MI head coach Mahela Jayawardene is worried that Mumbai are losing close games. The former Sri Lankan skipper feels MI are rebuilding their team and need one win to be back on track. (Video and images: BCCI)

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Transcript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 Coach, three defeats on the draw.
00:21 How tough do you think will it be to come back from here?
00:24 And another question, a word on Tilak Verma
00:26 and how impressed are you with him?
00:29 I think it's always tough when you have a start like this.
00:32 But we need to look at the positives.
00:34 We've been playing some really good cricket.
00:36 It's just that we're not closing games off.
00:38 All three games, we are in it.
00:40 And we were not able to finish it off.
00:42 So these are concerns, especially with the ball,
00:45 that we are not executing at the back end under pressure.
00:49 Some of the execution has been poor.
00:52 So we need to make sure that we need to brush up on that.
00:55 It's a long tournament.
00:57 Three games, yeah, it is tough.
00:59 But we need to make sure that we get a win
01:01 and get into that good habits.
01:03 And anything can happen, especially with 10 teams.
01:05 There's a lot of teams going to beat each other up as well.
01:08 So we just need to make sure we are in it midway
01:11 through the season.
01:12 Tough luck today, Coach.
01:14 Do you think due to an extra tinge of grass in the wicket,
01:17 this was one of the difficult pitches
01:19 as compared to others to counter in the power play
01:21 as both the teams could not really
01:23 get a move on in the first six overs today, my love?
01:26 Yeah, I think there's a little bit in it.
01:29 We saw in the other two games that was played here as well.
01:32 There's like with the new ball, there's
01:33 always hard to work through.
01:36 So we knew we had to be patient, not to give too many wickets.
01:39 I thought we built it up nicely.
01:41 We probably got behind in that first 10 overs
01:47 even after the power play just to establish ourselves
01:50 because we were losing wickets.
01:51 And yeah, I mean, it's a good challenge to have.
01:54 It's every surface because we are playing in four venues.
01:57 So for us to have different surfaces,
02:01 it's always good.
02:02 There's something for the bowler,
02:03 something for the batsman.
02:05 That's the challenge that you want in IPL.
02:08 Given the way Kamenzo's hitting, Bumrah and Nils
02:12 in the previous couple of overs, do you
02:14 think bringing Amol-E-Kasim would have been a better option
02:17 in that particular point of the game?
02:20 Well, it's quite easy to say hindsight.
02:22 I thought the fast bowlers were easier,
02:24 like the areas we bowled.
02:26 Only thing that we probably would
02:28 have held on to those hard lengths a bit more
02:30 rather than bowling those extra change-ups.
02:34 The short boundaries on the leg side,
02:35 so it is quite easy for even Pat to probably hit
02:39 a few of those slog swims.
02:40 Anything could have happened.
02:42 But yeah, I mean, hindsight, you can say that.
02:45 But it's in a situation like that.
02:49 It was just, what, 35, 36 off 30 balls.
02:54 So we were looking, thinking that the left-armer
02:57 will be able to take it away from him
02:59 and try and create some pressure.
03:02 I want to just ask, what do you think
03:04 they did that seemed like in this match?
03:06 And if missing the role of all-rounder player
03:09 like Hardik and Kronal in this season?
03:12 Well, obviously, we knew that after the big auction,
03:15 you can't keep all your players.
03:16 And our combination is going to be different.
03:18 And we've introduced a couple of young guys.
03:22 And they've been doing really well for us.
03:24 The luck's been fantastic.
03:26 Obviously, Previs is first game for us.
03:30 And we just need to work with them and see how things go.
03:34 Thought the combination that we played suited us
03:38 in the last few games.
03:39 But obviously, something for us to think about.
03:42 It's always going to be hard to replace any of the players
03:45 that we had.
03:45 They were fantastic players.
03:47 And if you see them, they're captaining one side.
03:50 The other guy is captain, vice captain.
03:51 And everyone's performing.
03:53 So that's a quality that we missed.
03:55 And we just need to make sure that we rebuild and get
03:59 our combinations right.
04:01 [AUDIO OUT]
04:05 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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