In their first three matches of IPL 2022, Mumbai have been guilty of losing matches from situations where they had everything in control but squandered the momentum with the ball.

 

With their match against Royal Challengers Bangalore coming on Saturday, the clash becomes an important one for Mumbai to change their fortune in the league to be in contention for making the playoffs.

 

For that, they will need their bowling to come good, something which has been a theme in their hat-trick of losses.

 

"It's a simple fix really. If we can stick to our plans and stick to the areas we want to bowl when the pressure comes on, then I think you'll see a turnaround. As I said, I think we've seen that when we've executed our plans the way that we wanted to, we've been really successful. We saw it in the last game (against Kolkata) against Andre Russell. Venkatesh Iyer, we made him work really hard for a fifty and bowled really well to him," said Bond in the pre-match virtual press conference.

 

"We've just had one player who's come out in each game and hit 30-plus off sort of 10-11 balls, which has taken the game away from us. I look at those things that we've done against those players, and we haven't bowled where we said we were going to bowl. So in terms of the bowling, it's simple. If we say we have our plans and we stick to those, generally we're pretty successful," added Bond, a former New Zealand pacer.

 

Bond feels that bowlers going for big runs in an over is something which has hurt Mumbai's bowling big time, comprising pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, Tymal Mills, Daniel Sams, Basil Thampi and Murugan Ashwin.

 

"It's been a real mixed bag from us I suppose from a bowling unit. You look at the last game; the first 10 overs were fantastic. We had a couple of overs that got away from us. It's been a little bit of a pattern for us, that we've done some really good stuff, we've taken out a number of the big players exactly how we thought we would. But when the game's been in the balance, we've gone for some overs of 20-plus.

 

"And when you go for overs of 20-plus, then you end up losing matches."

 

Bond pointed out that Mumbai have to back their well-planned bowling strategies, especially in the final five overs to bag their first win of the season.

 

"In terms of changes, we always prepare diligently, well-planned and execute those plans very well. When we haven't done that, we have been taken apart.

 

"So the message really from me is to go back to what are we trying to do against a certain type of player? If we execute those plans, then we make it as hard as we possibly can. The challenge for us is to do that when the pressure is on at the back end of the game, which we haven't done so far."