Mumbai still aiming high

Mohali: TA Sekar, Mumbai Indians Director of Cricket, was a disappointed man after the loss to bottom-placed Kings XI Punjab. Speaking at the media interaction after the game, Sekar believed the batting let the side down.

Excerpts:
On MI’s second consecutive loss: Well, that’s Twenty20 cricket. I think out of the eight teams, on a given day, any team can beat any team. It’s been [like this], now the trend is that the low-lying teams are beating the top teams. I think we will definitely re-group and come back very strongly.

On the difficulties of not knowing the conditions when playing away games: Yes, definitely [it is harder], because when you are playing at home, you know the conditions very well. In the away games the conditions are a bit different and we lost some quick wickets and that is why we were not able to keep up the run-rate, so we did not put up a total to defend on this wicket. It is a very good batting wicket. We should have at least scored around 175 which we could have defended. We were 20 runs short.

On the initial games at home being an advantage for MI: See, the thing is, it could be an advantage, it could be a disadvantage because playing at home is always an advantage for every team. Because every team is playing at home, so maybe because we played five matches on the trot at home, that was an advantage to us.

On IPL being a professional game and helpful for young cricketers: Yes, of course, definitely it is as good as or even better than some international T20 games. It’s a group of foreigners and Indians playing, it’s a learning process for a lot of Indian youngsters. Definitely India will produce some very good cricketers in the future. And the perception of playing in Twenty20, and then when they play 50-50 overs, is changing because today in a 50-50 match you can even chase 350-400. This has only started after T20 because people know exactly when to really hit and where to hit. Definitely, some of the youngsters are doing really well.

On Kieron Pollard’s lack of runs and the reason for his failure: No, it’s not a lack of confidence, because it is a lot of pressure playing down the order and we had lost wickets and he was not able to play his original game. Basically he is a player [who goes] in the last six-eight overs and really hits the bowlers. But, in our case, he needed to play some overs because we had lost five-six wickets by the time he got in. [In] some of the matches we even promoted him and he did not click for us. Hopefully in the remaining matches he will click.

On the batsmen’s performance in the last two matches being a concern: No, not at all, because we have got a very good batting group, definitely we will do well because. Yes, of course [in the] last two matches our batting has not been up to the standard that we had set earlier. But I think we will be able to address that, re-group and come back very strongly in the next few matches.

On the team being complacent facing the bottom-placed team: No, no, no, definitely we don’t play such complacent cricket at all. We wanted to win this game and then go into the top so that we are four points ahead of others with the same number of matches but, unfortunately, our batting did not click. We did play very seriously, we wanted to win this game, we were not complacent at all. We wanted to win this game, badly.

On planning to win the next game and then giving seniors a rest: Definitely, we are looking at booking a spot in the semis and then we want to be number one in the league table. That is our next goal.