“This is my ninth season, so it’s getting frustrating” - Shane Bond reflects on yet another loss for MI in opening IPL game

Bowling coach Shane Bond admitted that Mumbai Indians’ (MI) inability to win their opening games in the Indian Premier League (IPL) is getting frustrating and is a tough way to start the competition.

MI went down to Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by eight wickets in their first match of IPL 2023 at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. The loss on Sunday, April 2, was Mumbai’s 11th consecutive defeat in their first match of an IPL season.

The last time Mumbai won their opening match in an IPL edition was way back in 2012 when they defeated Chennai Super Kings (CSK) by eight wickets under Harbhajan Singh’s leadership. In a post-match press conference, Bond opened up on Mumbai’s struggles at the start of the new season. He conceded:

“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 a tough competition. It’s always better to have more wins than losses. It’s a tough way to start.”

Bond, meanwhile, expressed his excitement at the IPL's return to the home and away format this season. Sharing his views on the atmosphere at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, he said:

“It was great to be back out on Chinnaswamy. With that atmosphere, we are just back into the traditional IPL. I think everyone missed it. Now we've got a few new players. They would have found it pretty intimidating but it’s much better for the experience.

"I think everyone's just excited to be back into the traditional IPL. Even for me, standing out in the middle today, feeling that energy from the crowd and the noise was quite special.”

Last year, the IPL was restricted to a handful of venues due to the threat of COVID-19.

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“We offered too much width at the start of our innings” - Shane Bond on MI’s disappointing bowling effort

Speaking of the game, MI set RCB 172 for victory, a target Bangalore gunned down in 16.2 overs as Faf du Plessis (73 off 43) and Virat Kohli (82* off 49) played terrific knocks.

While hailing the duo, the MI bowling coach lamented the lack of control from his bowlers. Bond opined:

“With Virat, you just don’t want to pitch the ball too full. He’s so good when the ball is up in his eyes and full. He got us. With Faf, we knew he would use his feet. We wanted to try and use the yorker and probably didn’t use it enough. We offered too much width at the start of our innings. We got hit to both sides of the pitch and couldn’t really create any pressure.

“We never strung two overs together where we felt like the game was squeezing. That was obviously a little bit to do with our bowling, but they played brilliantly.”

Mumbai Indians’ next match will be against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Saturday, April 8.