After Mumbai Indians' campaign in IPL 2023 came to an end with a 62-run defeat to Gujarat Titans in 2 Qualifier at Ahmedabad, head coach Mark Boucher admitted that he was disappointed about the result, but lauded the fight shown by the team till the end.
"First of all, the experience has been fantastic, I have really enjoyed it. Got a good group of guys in the dressing room, the support staff is great as well, lots of experience. It's tough, it's a very tough competition. It takes a lot to win a game of cricket."
'There are a lot of good teams that you come up against and the results can go either way, so it's quite a stressful competition. But to get to the playoffs is a great achievement. Obviously disappointed about tonight's result but I think we fought right to the end," he said in the post-match press conference.
Boucher also rued the lack of discipline shown by the bowling unit which allowed Gujarat to post 233/3, with Shubman Gill scoring 129 off 60 balls, as well as the batting line-up being unsettled due to Ishan Kishan suffering concussion, which led to a change in the opening pair, as Mumbai were bowled out for 171 in 18.2 overs.
"233 I thought was a bit high, to be fair, probably 25 to 30 runs too much. It was a little bit unsettling because we weren't quite sure how Ishan was going to go. Nehal we knew that he could do the job, in the practice games that we played, he actually opened the batting and he played fairly aggressively, which we really needed; someone to go out and play that way tonight."
"It didn't come up for us but it's T20 cricket. You got to adapt to the conditions and today we were thrown a bit of a curveball, unsettled us a bit. We lost Nehal early. I think Green was the one that also unsettled us a bit, got a blow to the arm, and he came off, but thankfully he was able to go back out and bat for us and put us in a decent position up until sort of like the 15th over."
"Unfortunately, we just lost too many wickets and I think that is our downfall from the batting perspective tonight. We gave it a good go right up until the 15th over. If one of our batters that were in there had batted right to the end, it might have been a lot closer than the end result."
"But I am proud of the way that they went about it. We could have gone out there and lost those couple of wickets and just thrown in the towel. It shows good signs for the future of how the guys are playing and the belief in the changing room and the intent that they're showing, especially with the bat," he elaborated.
Boucher signed off by saying the bowling line-up had to work with limited resources, especially after losing Jasprit Bumrah, Jofra Archer and Jhye Richardson to injuries. "In the bowling, you lose two of your stars in the bowling lineup, it's going to create a couple of holes and we try to fix it up as best as possible. Hopefully, the guys can get over their injuries."
"If they can't, then we might have to look at other places and there are so many things that we can talk about. Not for me to start opening up a can of worms now, it would be stupid. I think it's time to just sit back, reflect a bit, take the emotion out of it and make some good sound cricketing decisions once everything's calmed down and once we understand the future of certain individuals and where they are from a fitness perspective."