MI coach Mahela Jayawardene has heaped praise on Jasprit Bumrah and said that the pacer has given the team a completely different dimension since making his return to the side. Bumrah, after a slow start, has found his groove and leading the MI attack from the front.
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00:00Third in the points table, how do you look at teams changing positions?
00:05One, it's RCB, Mumbai was two, then it is now three.
00:09How do you look at those kind of changes?
00:11Does it give you some fear that people are also coming up the table?
00:15Does it give you any threat sort of thing?
00:18I mean, obviously, the number of games that you are playing and how that composition works,
00:26there's always going to be changes, especially with Kings having that odd number because of the rain off game.
00:33So all that things that we as a franchise can't control or I as a coach can't control,
00:42I'll just focus on game tomorrow and then after that the next game.
00:48We have three good games against us, which is good for us,
00:55who's in that top five.
00:57So we just want to do what we've been doing, playing some good cricket.
01:04Boys are focused on that and the rest I can't control.
01:09So my focus would be what I can control at this point and just keep focusing on that.
01:16Mahela, at the start there was so much uncertainty about Jaspreet joining the team,
01:22but now having joined the team, he's brought so much value to the team, the bowling department, isn't it?
01:27Yeah, I mean, when we set up the team, retain him, we all knew that how valuable Jesse is going to be.
01:35And obviously we knew he won't be available for the first few games, but he made a good recovery.
01:42Didn't take long for him to get into the stride as well.
01:46That's a good thing about Jaspreet that he's got a lot of control, confidence in how he wants to go about
01:53and he gives us a completely different dimension to this attack.
01:57And everyone else also feeds off that and we've seen that in the last four or five games.
02:04He's bold, his quota in almost all the games. How is he feeling actually physically?
02:10He's fine. There's nothing wrong with him. We've monitored him.
02:15His pace is getting better and better. So execution is better.
02:20So we saw that in the last game as well. He was quite aggressive and how we wanted to go about it.
02:26So he looks fine.
02:29Hi, Mahela.
02:32A lot of things have fallen in place for MI in the last five, six games.
02:37How much of a difference do you think the opening prayer clicking together has made,
02:42especially the stand we saw in the last game?
02:45Because I was going through a stat that from 22 to 24 on the table of best opening stands,
02:51MI were towards the bottom.
02:53And the Rohit we see these days is also very different from the Rohit from a few years ago
02:57who used to take 15, 20 balls to start hitting big boundaries.
03:01Yeah, I mean, for any team, if you see in the competition, the openers do play a very valuable part in establishing.
03:10And especially with the batting lineup that we have, the way we build, when we get a good start, it always complements to that.
03:19And that's what we wanted to do.
03:22It's just that even though Ro probably the last few years, he hadn't those big scores, but he was trying to give us that impetus as well.
03:31Even though I wasn't the head coach I was watching.
03:34He used to get those quick 20s or 15s, 20s, 30s, but couldn't convert.
03:40But obviously the way he's converting it right now, it gives us a lot of advantage.
03:44And obviously Ryan enjoys batting with him.
03:47He's getting valuable experience out there in the middle.
03:50So like you said that, you know, things are falling into place overall, not just the batting, bowling.
03:59I think fielding as well.
04:01I think our fielding has been really, really good.
04:03And we've converted a lot of opportunities.
04:05And that's something that we've emphasized a lot with the group that we have.
04:11So like I said, you know, as long as we're competing at that level and fighting for each and every opportunity,
04:20that's all we can control and have that focus.
04:25Is everyone fit for selection?
04:27Yes.
04:28I think Mitch was the one who with the finger injury, he's made a decent recovery.
04:34So we'll assess him today.
04:36He practiced yesterday, he practiced today as well.
04:39And then make a call tomorrow.
04:42You must have seen the pitch.
04:45How do you think it will behave?
04:48Is it kind of batsman friendly or something?
04:51Have you seen the duo last two days?
04:54Have I seen?
04:56Obviously not.
04:58I haven't seen yesterday, but I was here till about nine o'clock.
05:02But we'll have to monitor that today and tomorrow.
05:05The wicket looks good.
05:06It's one of the wickets that we played before.
05:08Looks a very good one-cut-a-day wicket.
05:13You know, difficult to say whether it's batting friendly.
05:17I think if you have the skill set, the bowlers also have a lot of opportunities to take from that wicket.
05:24But it's a good cricketing wicket.
05:25Was it the KKR pitch?
05:26No, it's the RCB one.
05:27Yeah, the number three.
05:28Eight.
05:29Yes, correct.
05:30There you go.
05:31I'm not very familiar with the numbers.
05:32I get the report on daily basis.
05:33But it is the RCB.
05:34We get RCB and I think we played CSK on that.
05:35Yeah.
05:36Coach, how much of a comfort factor is it to know that you're going to play two of the
05:41remaining matches at home, given that you need to win two more to win to get into the playoffs?
05:46And does tomorrow's game in any sense or in any means serve as a prelude to what you can
05:51possibly face in the knockout stages?
05:53Well, like I said, I haven't thought that far out.
05:56I think when I saw the schedule, I knew that having to play your last two games out of
06:03the three at home obviously was a good thing.
06:20We were starting away from home.
06:22So we knew that, you know, that might come into play and it has come to play.
06:28But I haven't thought about the playoffs.
06:31I think there are five, six teams with KKR winning yesterday as well.
06:36So there's a different permutations and I'm not going to even go through that, how everything's
06:43going to unfold.
06:44I think we'll all see maybe another five to six days when everyone plays one more round
06:52where things are and then we can probably gauge what we need to do.
06:58But GT is a very good team and it's going to be a good match.
07:03And like I said, it's just the focus on what we need to do and just keep in that bubble.
07:10Amila, how much of a threat are GT's openers?
07:14Firstly, Shubhman Gill and Sai Sudarshan.
07:17And secondly, you know, with almost every game bowlers going for 200 odd.
07:22How tough is it to manage the bowling group now?
07:25You know, last couple, I feel we've seen that 200 has been breached so often.
07:29First question, I think those two guys have been very, very consistent.
07:35And not just the two, the top three, I think 75% of their runs been scored by them.
07:43The ball's been faced by them.
07:44So that's a challenge that our bowling unit will have and we'll have to work towards that.
07:50And that's how their team has been built on.
07:54And that's something that we will look deeply.
07:59At the same time, runs scored.
08:01Obviously, the impact player has made a big difference in the 200s being scored.
08:08Bats were not batting freely because of that extra player, the batter that you have.
08:13And then obviously, so that's why we wanted to build a bowling attack that counter that.
08:19And I think we've managed to do that in the last four or five games where we're bowling teams out.
08:25Or we're trying to control the run rates to try and keep it to that 170, 180 mark.
08:32And that gives you an opportunity.
08:37The margins are very small.
08:38You see in the games, it comes down to 10 or below most of the time.
08:43So the teams are set up for that.
08:45The difference is always going to be the bowling.
08:48How we can control maybe five, six overs of the game in a positive way.
08:54Picking up early wickets, power play, middle overs, and then the depth.
08:59So that's a challenge that every team has.
09:02And whoever executes that better has a better opportunity to do well.
09:09Was the call taken at the start of the tournament to have Rohit as the impact player as far as possible?
09:15Because there might have been a temptation to use as inputs in the field.
09:18No, it wasn't at the start.
09:21But obviously, Rohit was on the field when some of the games.
09:27But if you look at the composition of the team, most of the guys are doing dual roles.
09:34Most of them are bowling.
09:37At the same time, some of the venues, you need boundary runners, you need guys with speed and all that.
09:45So that also comes into play.
09:48And Rohit was also nursing an eagle from the Champions Trophy.
09:54So we wanted to make sure that we don't push him too hard.
09:59Manage that while batting is the most important thing.
10:04But he's contributed tremendously, whether he's on the field or not.
10:10I think if you've seen like he's always brown in the dugout or he goes in during timeouts and there's a lot of communications been happening.
10:18So actively involved.
10:20But it's just overall planning for us to make sure that we have all the bowling options that we need on the field.
10:32And we have a lot of senior heads as well.
10:34Like, you know, most likely to be taken out would be either a Surya or a Thilaq or someone like that, a domestic batter.
10:44So it's a hard choice for me, but it's a good headache to have.
10:49Last game against Arar, would you say that was the near perfect game that the MA had?
11:03Or can any team have a perfect game with everything going, the batting, bowling, fielding, catching, whatnot?
11:10Yeah, I think as a coach, I'm still like told the boys that I realized to improve.
11:17That's how I see it.
11:18But I think execution wise, we were very, very good batting.
11:23We control the situations.
11:25It wasn't the easiest wicket to start on.
11:27And I thought Ro and Ryan assessed the conditions pretty well and gave us a great start.
11:33And then we managed to really consolidate on that.
11:36The bowling, we had some plans, obviously, because they had a very strong top order.
11:40So we've executed those plans pretty perfectly.
11:44Catching was good, like you said.
11:46So yeah, I'm pretty happy going from the Hyderabad game to the CSK and obviously that RR game.
11:56All that for us, we have been proving as a unit.
12:00And every game's a new challenge.
12:03And I'll get them to make sure they start from ball one tomorrow.
12:08Yeah, you talked about Mitch not being 100% there.
12:11But even then, would you say with the leggy, Karin Sharma and Corbin Bosch coming to the mix,
12:16it's more or less a set level now for the last three matches?
12:19No, I think for me, I look at what would be the best combination on the bowling side of things against matchups against certain opposition.
12:33That's how I see things.
12:35Yeah, I think so.
12:36Yeah, I think so.
12:37Yeah, yeah.
12:38So, I think so.
12:39I think so.
12:40I think so.
12:41Well, this is the best one.
12:42Yeah.
12:43Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:44Yeah, yeah.
12:45obviously gave us a different impetus, but we played on conditions that probably suited
12:50that and the match-ups were pretty good.
12:52So I'll keep that flexibility, I know Mitch, everyone brings us that little bit of difference
13:01and the experience into the group.
13:04So as long as we're putting out the right combination, who we feel that is the best,
13:10and who's informed, who we need out there, we'll make those choices.