Mumbai Indians’ struggles have been so frustrating this season that they appeared to have forgotten how to win games.
But the seven-wicket victory against Sunrisers Hyderabad last night – by far their best performance in IPL7 – has come as a huge confidence booster.
Mumbai lost the first five matches of the UAE leg before returning to winning ways in the comfort of their home turf, at the Wankhede Stadium.
They began by defeating leaders Kings XI Punjab by five wickets and then tamed Royal Challengers Bangalore by 19 runs before suffering their first defeat in two years at their home venue against Chennai Super Kings.
The defending champions’ hopes of making the cut for the play-off stage hangs in the balance but all-rounder Kieron Pollard believes they are still in with a chance if they play like they did last night and win each of their remaining five games.
“We would have wanted for this to happen a lot earlier. We didn’t start the tournament well and even the last game (against Chennai), we lost," said Pollard.
“The pressure to do well is always there. If you see the trend in IPL, defending champions don’t do well barring CSK.
“We have to win each and every day now, we will have to dive around, run around and do our best to try and make it for playoff."
Captain Rohit Sharma added: “It was a perfect game, the most clinical performance by us. This is our capability and we always expect this performance.
“We bowled well to restrict them and to chase it down like that, it was simply superb. To bowl at (David) Warner and (Aaron) Finch that well is not easy, I must credit all the bowlers.
“Today was a perfect day, (Lendl) Simmons smacked it right from the beginning and (Ambati) Rayudu kept it solid.”
Rayudu, who notched his second successive fifty-plus score following the 59 against Chennai, believes he is getting back into the groove.
“My head was in UAE, my legs were in Hyderabad and my bat was somewhere else," said Rayudu.
“It was all going haywire, so I had to get it all together. Simmons took the pressure off me, I could go and play all my shots."
