Yet to taste a victory after three games, Mumbai Indians coach is hopeful of reversing the fortunes; captain Sharma is sure of coming out of this situation well
Back-to-back defeats can demotivate a team. When you return home after a loss the previous night, expecting the players to smile and keep happy faces is a bit unfair.
However, Mumbai Indians never looked like the team that is down and out. At the Reliance Foundation-MI's Education For All initiative in a city hotel on Wednesday afternoon, the Rohit Sharma-led outfit looked a confident bunch that was ready to take the future challenges head on.
They presented themselves a happy unit with the recent defeats having no impact on their body language as the players had fun with the under-privileged by playing cricket and then signing autographs on the back of their MI T-shirts.
The smiling skipper said that his team knew how to overcome these kind of situations. "I am sure we can come out of this. Last time also we were in a similar situation. Then we went on to do well. It is all about the confidence and it is important to keep the players in a good space. We have a big game against Chennai Super Kings coming and it is important for us to forget our three previous games, be positive and move forward," the 27-year-old said at the event.
Sharma admitted that his team has to do much better. "We know that we have lost three games. We haven't done things that could have been done. We are working on them. There are hurdles that we are not been able to cross. In batting and bowling, we are lacking somewhere. Our preparations have been really good. It was just that we are not able to execute our plans," he added.
First-time coach Ricky Ponting, too, exuded confidence in his team. "We are lacking a little bit of confidence as a group. We weren't off to a great start but looking at our last two games we have seen the glimpses of some good cricket. We have to make sure that we last 40 overs and not 25-40 overs, something we have been doing in the last couple of games.
"I have got a feeling that good performance is round the corner and it's up to the group to work really hard to move. Since we are playing a very good CSK the day after (Friday), we have to be at our absolute best and win that game."
When asked why Sharma dropped himself to No. 4 after opening in the first two games, the captain said: "It was simple, we just had to get the right combination and the right balance."
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