From injuries affecting the planning to having to try out different combinations, to the ups and downs through the league stage of WPL 2026, Mumbai Indians Head Coach, Lisa Keightley reflects and speaks at the post-match press conference. Excerpts..

On the opening woes with the bat

Sajana did quite well in the end. She was over a run a ball. When she did hit clean, it was clean. Obviously we have struggled upfront. We tried a number of combinations and we feel that Sajana and Hayley (Matthews) are our best options. They have worked hard over the last few games to get some rhythm going. Unfortunately Hayley got out early today.

Thoughts on the up and down season

We definitely struggled early to get going. We had a lot of injuries and sickness to our key players which was tough. We had to find combinations and do things a little bit differently. We probably struggled to get that momentum into our season having been put under pressure early and losing matches. We just couldn’t get those combinations and partnerships to get that momentum going in the tournament, which was disappointing.

On the team combinations through the tournament

We were really clear what it looked like going into the tournament. But then when Hayley did a quad in the practice match and was out for three games, we had to work out what our combinations were. It was tough missing a world class batter, who was hard to replace.

Thoughts on the match

We talked about it. The conditions here today were slightly tougher. The batting is no different to what they’ve had in the past and have been very successful. The only difference was the injuries we’ve had throughout where we had to move things around. Nicola Carey coming in and playing well was probably the first time we had to make some decisions on which overseas players we were going to play. I don’t think it’s been any different for MI from the first three years to this year. The key players are key players in most teams. It’s just about how you build your squad around that and then the domestic players step up. We just had a lot of moving parts, like Sajana, we picked her to bat at six. She started off the tournament fantastically well, but it was unfortunate, Kamalini went home and we had to make adjustments. To her credit, she was really keen to go out and do the best for the team. It is not easy going out, facing world class bowlers in this tournament. She was just trying to put the team first and doing the job as well as she could. She put in a lot of work at training to make sure she prepped well to give herself the best chance. It was nice for her to get some runs today. If she could have been there a little bit longer, it could have been a nice reward for all the hardwork she’s done over the past couple of weeks.

On the message given to Amanjot Kaur before going into bat

The message was, Amanjot had to go and take a bit of pressure off Harman. She tried and then Harman knew she had to get two big overs and see what they have left with the last over. But to Gujarat’s credit, they bowled really well. Harman was set. She is really good at doing those situations. But they had really good plans. They were just too good for us today. The two overs after their strategic break, two overs for 37 was a big shift. We had it under control until then. That was probably the difference with the bat, that two over shift.