“It was a good season for us, but it wasn’t to be this year.”

Mahela Jayawardene, Mumbai Indians’ head coach, offered a fair assessment of his team’s campaign in IPL 2025 following this loss against Punjab Kings in Qualifier 2, in Ahmedabad, on Sunday (June 1).

A campaign which kicked off with four losses in the first-five games picked up significant pace once Jasprit Bumrah returned to the side. The five-time champions registered six successive wins, offering evidence of the strength they packed on paper, in both batting and bowling. Their eventual ouster following a loss in the high-scoring encounter of a knockout game notwithstanding, it was a campaign where Mumbai Indians would know that they got more things right than wrong after the initial struggle.

But Jayawardene was quick to confess that Mumbai Indians didn’t put up their best performance on the park against the Shreyas Iyer-led side.

“There could have been a lot of ifs and buts, but I think we didn’t play a perfect game and we paid for it,” Jayawardene said. “It was a good campaign for us, the way we started and how we regrouped as a team and played some really, really good cricket. We had our opportunities getting to the playoffs, and we had a really good game first up. Even today I thought we played some good cricket, except for Kings playing better cricket than us, especially with the bat.”

With a collective batting effort led by Jonny Bairstow, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav and Naman Dhir, Mumbai Indians posted 203 for 6, and later had Prabhsimran Singh dismissed cheaply in the third over of the chase. However, Josh Inglis took the attack to the Mumbai Indians bowlers, especially smashing 20 runs off Jasprit Bumrah’s first over to ensure it remained an even battle.

The chase was then steered by Shreyas Iyer, who stroked an unbeaten 41-ball 87 to help the side over the line with an over to spare. In the company of Nehal Wadhera, he added 84 runs in 8.1 overs through the middle overs to ensure Mumbai Indians didn’t find a way back into the contest. With two dropped catches, Mumbai Indians would have themselves to blame for it as well, but the MI head coach reserved praise for the opposition.

“They were solid, especially chasing 200. It’s not that easy. They’ve executed that pretty well. We made a few blunders obviously, with those two catchers, but that’s how the game goes. We had that luck going our way in the previous game. So I think it was a good game of cricket, and we came short. It’s as simple as that.”

It was one of those rare days when Bumrah was not only taken apart, but he failed to strike as well. He finished with figures of 0 for 40 from his four-over spell. However, Jayawardene refused to accept that the team was heavily reliant on Bumrah to defend the total.

“I thought the others, like especially Ashwini bowled really well today,” he said. “Mitch (Santner) bowled well, and then Hardik as well. So it wasn’t just about Bumrah. He was trying to get those wickets up from,t and especially the PowerPlay. Josh (Inglis) batted well. Overs 3-4, executed well, and it was a battle between that. Either you might get a wicket or them taking that advantage, and they took the advantage.

“In phases, they batted well. We also came back and took the wickets and were in it. It’s just that middle phase, we just couldn’t control that after the 10th over, those 4-5 overs, we just couldn’t keep the pressure going and that’s where especially Nehal and Shreyas, their partnership probably took the game away from us.”

“Shreyas took his time,” he said, adding on the role of the PBKS skipper. “We knew they were a bit under pressure, so he was taking his time. We knew that was a danger. As long as we didn’t give him that partnership with Nehal, we would have been able to squeeze through because he would have had to go early, not wait that long. So he got Nehal to do the bulk of the work at that point. That shows the experience and he knew he had to take the game deep and he did.

“Shreyas took control of that over (from Reece Topley). That was a big over for us because that shifted the momentum and we had to make those overs as well because we knew what our game plan was at the back end. So it’s just one of those days and they took the upper hand at that situation.” (Cricbuzz)