It is never easy for any captain or coach to face the post-match press conference when you are aware that the IPL season for the team is over. Mumbai Indians head coach Mahela Jayawardene found himself in a similar kind of situation and had to face the difficult questions from the reporters. MI did well to post 166 for 7 on a tricky wicket in Raipur on Sunday, but Royal Challengers Bengaluru managed to chase down the total off the final ball, to confirm MI’s exit from the IPL 2026 playoff race.
When asked what went wrong for MI this season, Jayawardene said: “The season is disappointing. We’ve had our opportunities, but we were not good enough. We were not consistent enough with the ball or the bat, and that showed in the margins. We were probably two or three wins away from being in the same group of contenders to get into the playoffs, but we didn’t get those wins, and today was another classic example where we fell short.”
“It’s difficult for me to sum up a season right now; I have to give it some thought and figure out exactly what happened. But yeah, we were not good enough with our skills and execution this season,” he added.
There were lot of chopping and changing Mumbai did this season and coach said those were “most forced changes”, because of injuries and niggles to players.
“I don’t think it was chopping and changing. What probably you guys didn’t know is that we had a lot of injuries and a lot of niggles-guys getting injured or being unavailable. So, those were mostly forced changes. Tactically, we would have changed very few during the season. I would have loved to have our main core guys consistently out there. But there are no excuses. I think we had a quality squad. It’s just that we had to put our hands up and say that we were not good enough overall. We just need to continue to play good cricket. The message to the boys is to continue to do that,” the former Sri Lanka captain said.
When asked whether keeping some out-of-form senior players in the team had become a “political decision”, Jayawardene dismissed the suggestion. The Sri Lankan legend said he could see how hard the core group was working and therefore continued to back them with full confidence.
“I don’t think it is,” Jayawardene said when asked if it became a “political decision” to bench out-of-form senior players.
“When you know the quality, you know they’re also trying to do their best. If I knew it was something to do with a lack of effort, I would have spoken to them, but the commitment and the effort they’re putting in is unbelievable. With Ro getting injured and coming back to bat the way he did-all that sums it up. The core group is quite valuable for us; you can’t just keep changing. We went with the trust and the confidence that we had in them. There was no reason for us to sideline them because they just came from a World Cup, and they had a really good World Cup, winning it and all that. As a unit, we haven’t been good enough.”
