'It will be stupid': Mark Boucher confesses the main reason behind Mumbai Indians' failure

Mumbai Indians succumbed to a defeat against Gujarat Titans as they crashed out of the IPL playoffs. A certain Shubman Gill wreaked havoc on the Mumbai bowlers as Hardik Pandya-led GT will now make their second consecutive appearance in the IPL final. Gujarat will face Chennai Super Kings in the summit clash on 28th May At Narendra Modi Stadium.

Mumbai couldn't avail of the service of Jasprit Bumrah while Jofra Archer also became redundant as injury issues restricted him from playing most of the IPL games. Mumbai head coach Mark Boucher feels the unavailability of Mumbai's two bowling mavericks proved to be a massive jolt for them.

Read More | 'They gave me clarity in my role': Suryakumar Yadav reveals his career's turning point

Mark Boucher reveals the main reason behind Mumbai Indians' failure to qualify for IPL final

“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. You know, 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.”

On being asked about the target they were chasing Boucher answered,  “Yes, 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 [Kishan] was going to go [after his injury].

Read More: IPL 2023: Here's everything to know about the prize money that is on the line

Nehal [Wadhera] 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 off 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.”