24 May,2026 09:30 AM IST | Mumbai | Subodh Mayure
Suryakumar Yadav checks his bat on Saturday; (right) MI opener Rohit Sharma at the Wankhede nets on Saturday. Pics/Ashish Raje
Mumbai Indians (MI) began their IPL-19 campaign on a winning note, outclassing Kolkata Knight Riders by six wickets at Wankhede on March 29. However, since then the five-time champions have witnessed a massive dip in performance and are out of the Playoffs race well before Sunday's final league match on their home ground vs Rajasthan Royals (RR).
MI's head coach Mahela Jayawardene, however, remains optimistic that his team will play for pride and their fans when they face RR at the Wankhede.
"It [performance] was not good enough. The consistency and execution in certain phases of the game were not there. We struggled and that has been the story for us. The last game [vs RR] is an important home game. We've got the ESA [Education and Sports for All initiative] as well.
All the kids will be here supporting us, so there's a lot to play for, not just pride," Jayawardene said during the pre-match press conference on Saturday.
The star-studded MI squad comprises India's T20 World Cup winners - MI skipper Hardik Pandya (172 runs and four wickets), Suryakumar Yadav (210 runs), Tilak Varma (356 runs), and pacer Jasprit Bumrah (four wickets) - but all have struggled for form. Jayawardene insists that playing for the country and for an IPL franchise are altogether different tasks.
"It's not fair just to bring those four guys, but as a group, a lot of the guys haven't been able to perform consistently. Yes, they came from a very high-level World Cup. But what you have to understand is that how you play for your national team and how you play for the IPL franchise, sometimes it's different because the personnel are different. The roles can be different, also how you want to go about it. So, they had to switch it up. There's nothing wrong with the effort they put in off the field in training and conversations we had with them. It's just that they were not able to go out there and execute in the middle," Jayawardene, a former Sri Lankan skipper, explained.
RR, who are on 14 points from 13 games and need a win to enter Playoffs, will hope to replicate last month's 27-run win over MI in a rain-affected match in Guwahati. RR's Mumbai boy Yashasvi Jaiswal starred with a match-winning unbeaten 77 off 32 balls, while teenage sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi smashed 39 off 14, including a first-ball six off Bumrah.
It will be interesting to witness the contest between a struggling Bumrah and the in-form opening pair of Sooryavanshi and Jaiswal.
20.17
Rohit Sharma's average against RR - his lowest against any opponent in IPL
One
No. of games MI have won against RR in their last four meetings at Wankhede
Two
No. of centuries for Yashasvi Jaiswal in IPL - both have come against MI
