We didn’t play our best cricket, says Jayawardene

“It is about margins. Both teams made quite a few mistakes out there in the middle, and we probably made more than them,” Mumbai Indians head coach Mahela Jayawardene said

Hyderabad: “It is about margins. Both teams made quite a few mistakes out there in the middle, and we probably made more than them,” Mumbai Indians head coach Mahela Jayawardene said after the team lost to Gujarat Titans by three wickets in the IPL league match in Mumbai on Tuesday night.

“I think that’s the difference. I haven’t been able to really go through everything in my head because it went quite late and we were trying to figure out what to do. But I think we didn’t play to our best, especially with the bat,” Jayawardene said.

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“I thought we were set up nicely and then we just had to bat those last eight overs, which we didn’t bat smartly. Yeah, I mean, I think we were in a situation where we were, I think, five games, four losses, one win. From that point onwards, I think we were muscling for us pretty much every game,” he said.

“I’m very proud of the boys today, the way they fought back from that situation. We were probably 30 runs short on that wicket and the guys bowled really well, created a lot of opportunities, fielded really well, and fought for everything. So I think that’s good sign and we’ll treat every game as a playoff game for us now,” Jayawardene said.

“Well, I could have bowled Jack, Karan Sharma, but I think Deepak did that job for us in the first few games as well. He was a good main bowler. Could have gone, I mean, I don’t know,” he said on the last over bowled by Chahar.

“My thinking is we lost the game when we had control of it and that was disappointing. No matter who bowled the last over, despite getting their top three fairly cheaply, I think it was the first time all three of them were out within the first 15 overs,” Jayawardene said.

“We had a bowler who we felt could execute and he missed two balls and that went for 10 runs and that was the margin. But like I said, I’m not so worried about the last over defeat. For me, it’s how we’ve played the game and where we had the opportunities, we missed out on that,” he said.