Living in moment key to Mumbai’s success: Mahela
Unlike their last IPL season, Mumbai Indians have been a transformed side this season and are virtually through to the playoffs.
After a few hiccups early on, Mumbai managed to put up a defiant show and have gone at a consistent pace about their job. Why this comes as a surprise is because Mumbai have had a history of shaky starts, but that is not the case anymore. Coach Mahela Jayawardene shared the mantra.
‘ONE GAME AT A TIME’
“From Day One I told the team to take one game at a time and nothing has changed from that. We just want to focus on Delhi tomorrow (Saturday). We still have two more group games so we are trying to get into good habits.
“Make sure we keep on evolving, improving areas we need to improve on. Being consistent in areas where we have done well,” said Jayawardene at the pre-match press conference.
Jayawardene said another reason for Mumbai’s consistency was the positive approach to not let things slip from their grip. “One reason was a con scious effort that we have a good start to the season because you don’t want to be in a situation where you want to win a lot o games and hoping that other teams do you favours.
“So we were planning to have that control. So after the firs loss, we made sure we strive on the momentum because we had eight games in 18 days so it was very difficult to keep tha momentum. Living in tha moment helped rather than thinking too much ahead. Stil this tournament is tough as teams will come hard at you,” he said.
The former Sri Lanka grea praised the way Rohit Sharma has come up this season, espe cially after surgery.
“Rohit came from a very seri ous operation and we jus wanted him to get the feel of the park, playing cricket. In the firs few games, we were very carefu as he hadn’t played any domestic cricket but still he has been a very good leader. He has taken a lo of responsibil ity.
“It was a differ ent role for him this year to bat a No 4 and he has
been brilliant.”