IPL 2020 | Mumbai Indians don’t plan too much pre-match; we play to our strengths, reveals Quinton de Kock

10/17/2020

After a 44-ball 78, Quinton de Kock has revealed that as a team, Mumbai Indians don’t plan too much before the game, focusing on just playing it to their strengths. He also stated that the thinking process is to back the players even after bad games and to keep things simple despite failure.

Taking a leaf out of Chennai’s winning-strategies, Mumbai have now won their last five games in the competition, running away as the table-toppers, with 12 points in eight games. While they didn’t start the tournament on the right note, with a loss against CSK, the aftermath of the game is seen visibly in their performance, the openers are building up a partnership and the middle order is ably contributing while them believing in the process.

Against KKR too, Mumbai put on an all-round show to establish their dominance over the Morgan-led side, against whom they have an impressive record. One of the integral parts of the win was their opener, Quinton de Kock, who scored a 44-ball 78, with nine boundaries and three sixes, thwarting the KKR bowling attack. In the post-match press conference, the Proteas keeper revealed that the franchise doesn’t believe too much in planning pre-game, as they like to play to their strengths.

“We don’t plan too much pre-match. Obviously, we all know our strengths, and in our team, there’s a lot of experience, so we just go out and perform. No preparations yet for the play-off, we are taking one game at a time. We are keeping things simple and playing humble, playing to our strengths. Whether we get to the playoffs or not, that’s not in our controllable, we are just playing to our strengths,” said de Kock in the post-match press conference.

Coming into the competition, one area of weakness that potentially could threaten Mumbai’s chances was their spin bowling - Rahul Chahar and Krunal Pandya. Before the game against KKR, there was a lot of criticism for Rahul, who had picked up just seven wickets. However, with a spell of 2/18, he put an end to the criticism. The Proteas star admitted that the management just backs the players to come good, which shows in results.

“I think the process is just to back them. We back him and he backs himself (Rahul Chahar). He knows and we know that if he has a bad game, he will bounce back with wickets. That he is going to go back and start working things, keep backing him. Just keeping things simple, that’s the way we like to do it, not overthinking things.”

“Experience players is the key, we don’t look to overthink about the future, we just concentrate on the game in hand. We don’t talk too much about the wicket, we got on the field as a team and be proactive in assessing the conditions. We don’t want to overthink and then we start taking the decisions accordingly as per the venues.”

Mumbai’s next encounter is against Kings XI Punjab, wyho are on the back of a win against RCB, on Sunday.