Mumbai Indians lost their opening match against Royal Challengers Bangalore on Sunday. The Rohit Sharma-led team suffered a loss by 8 wickets in the game which was played at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru. With the loss, team MI has registered an unwanted losing streak.
Mumbai Indians have lost every opening match of the tournament since 2013. The last time MI won their opening game was way back in 2012 when they defeated Chennai Super Kings. The team's bowling coach Shane Bond has expressed that the inability to win their first game season after season is "frustrating".
"This is my ninth season and we haven’t won our opening game. So it's getting frustrating. At the end of the day, it’s tough competition. It's always better to have more wins than losses. It’s a tough way to start," Bond said.
Bond lauded pacer RCB pacer, Mohammed Siraj.
"Siraj was too good for us today. First three overs from Siraj, he didn't give away any width. He used his bouncers beautifully. He gave us nothing to hit, forced us to play some shots, and got wickets from it.
"We were 29 for 1 in the powerplay on a good wicket, small ground. We have a long batting order, we tried to up the ante and got to 170. That opening spell was brilliant," Bond said.
MI batters failed to get going barring Tilak Verma, who scored an unbeaten 84 off 46 balls that helped MI post a respectable 171/7.
"Tilak played brilliantly, but he didn’t get much help. I think 170 on a really small ground was not a good total. I think 190 could have been a par total," said Bond.
"We didn't bowl well. We knew how important the opening partnership is going to be. We couldn’t break it and failed to apply pressure even," he added.
Also Read:
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Royal Challengers Bangalore start IPL 2023 campaign on high-note, thrash Mumbai Indians
