IPL 11: Mumbai Indians’ last-over blues will start to eat away at their confidence

The look of disbelief on Mumbai Indians coach Mahela Jayawardene’s face had its own story to tell. More than anything else, the look seemed to convey an ‘Oh no! not again’ feeling as the defending champions lost their fourth match in the last over.

Few would have given the Rajasthan Royals any chance of victory after they lost three wickets in the space of six balls at a crucial juncture in the innings. Among the wickets lost was top-scorer Sanju Samson.

The equation read 43 runs needed off 17 balls and K Gowtham is known to be a big hitter in domestic cricket – he has a strike-rate of 157 in domestic T20 – but this was the IPL, which is admittedly played at a higher level. If RR had Keiron Pollard in their team perhaps they would have had a chance; if RR had Hardik Pandya in there perhaps the odds would have been better but they had Gowtham and Mumbai Indians had Jasprit Bumrah, one of the India’s five A+ graded players.

But everyone in the RR team – from skipper Ajinkya Rahane to all the other team members – asked him to believe and that’s what he did. As shot after shot came off, RR’s belief got stronger while Mumbai just sunk in a little deeper into a hole of their own making.

That hole got bigger and deeper when Bumrah was taken for 18 runs in the penultimate over of the match. That meant the match would go into the last over with RR needing 10 runs to win and in a T20 scenario the advantage had to lie with the batting side.

Rohit Sharma handed the ball over to Hardik Pandya and it looked like a good decision when he struck off the first ball to dismiss Jofra Archer. The batsmen managed to change sides though and that gave RR a vital advantage – Gowtham was back on strike.

The second ball was helped over short third man for four. It was clever batting and poor bowling. The fielder was up in the circle and Hardik chose to go wide. He paid the price.

By this point, Gowtham’s confidence was sky high. He refused a single off the third ball and then finished things off with a six off the fourth to hand Mumbai their fourth last-over loss of 2018.

As the RR players charged on to the ground, cheering for joy, the Mumbai dugout wore a silent look. Hardik was despondent, Rohit disappointed and MI shoulders all over the field were drooping.

“On top of the world, had a decent first-class season with the bat. My captain said ‘believe’, and that’s what I did. No nerves on turning the single down. Just needed six off three balls, one good hit, that’s all I was thinking,” said Gowtham after the game.

MI’s thought process, though, will be very different. They have now lost four of their five matches so far and while that isn’t a good start by any standard, the close losses will hit their morale even more.

MI have succumbed to last-over losses against CSK, SRH, DD and RR now. The inability to close out games when they have been in an advantageous position will be gnawing away at their core confidence.

“This is not easy to digest,” said MI skipper Rohit Sharma after the game. “Especially, towards the end we were in the game, but credit to them. It is not easy to score 10-per-over on this surface in the last four overs but not making 180-190 hurt us. We didn’t capitalise on the start we got. It’s the second or third time we’ve done this. We’ve addressed this before, but need to improve. We needed to be smarter on where we should’ve hit the ball. It’s not easy to lose close games.”

And it’s one thing to lose when you have been outplayed by the opposition and quite another to lose when you feel like you could have done better. In Mumbai’s case, it has always been the latter. They have lost games they had a very good shot at winning and that hurts teams at a mental level.

From a tactical point of view, there is not much else they can do. An in-form Pollard would help; not giving the last over to Pandya would help; Rohit batting higher up might help too but they are taking it to the last over in almost every game. However, given the talent at their disposal, they certainly need to play the big points better. T20 matches essentially come down to these moments; there is nothing subtle about these changes in momentum and MI need to stand up and deliver on this front.

If Mumbai had got their act together, they could have been closer to the top of the table but instead, they are languishing at the bottom – just above perennial bottom-feeders Delhi Daredevils. And this is precisely the kind of thing that hurts morale.

MI can make a comeback, of course they can. As Gowtham’s knock showed, you never say never in this format but Mumbai’s turnaround will have to start quickly or they will find themselves sinking deeper in the quagmire of doubt and despair. For starters, they might want to try NOT taking the match into the last over.