‘The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall’. 

Coming into our fortress - the Wankhede Stadium - didn’t go as per the blueprint, but it is with the lessons learnt that we go mentally stronger into the next game on Tuesday (April 11). Head coach Mark Boucher addressed the media in the post-match press conference.

“We got off to a good start with the bat in the powerplay, and then we just had a batting collapse, I think. A couple of unlucky dismissals, some good catches, and we couldn't really build on any sort of partnership, which probably cost us about 30-40 runs at the back end. Pretty similar to the first game, just in different phases of the other innings. I thought we fought well to the end with the ball, but yeah, I just don't think that we had enough runs to put any sort of scoreboard pressure on CSK tonight.”

The impact player rule is still in its trial and test run in IPL 2023, but, MI opted to turn to the rule in the second half of the game. Boucher candidly discussed how it can be interpreted more as a ‘substitution’ than an ‘impact player.’

“Well, I think most teams at the moment will probably use it the way that every team has been using it - bat first to try and squeeze in that extra batter or bowl first to get that extra bowler. It's almost like a substitution rather than an impact player. Tonight, we did name it a little bit late. We only called it off to the power play and our second innings, and that is basically because we wanted to make a decision on whether we wanted to use a seam bowler or spinner.”

Was Kumar Kartikeya the right option as the impact player? “I do believe it was the right decision. He bowled, you know, one for 24 in four overs, so he did make an impact in the game, albeit in a losing cause.”

“We had five impact players. We discussed halfway that if we bat first, who will be the most effective. And we felt that spin was effective, that it would win the game for us, so I think, as I said, it was right to call just that, but we didn’t have enough runs to defend.

Lastly, Mark Boucher quickly blew away the mysterious smoke surrounding Jofra Archer’s absence. He confirmed that the England star would be back in action soon.

“He (Archer) has picked up a little niggle, and we have a fantastic medical team looking after him. He's obviously a massive player for us as well, so hopefully, you know they can pass him fit sometime soon. We will always look after the player, so if he's not ready to put his hand at play, then we'll look after him as well. But we're following the medical advice from our team at the moment. So yeah, hopefully, he's up for selection pretty soon.”