Mumbai, May 5 It's a musical chair of sorts for the top spot in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025. In a tight race for the playoffs in IPL 2025, the occupants of the top spot in the standings have been constantly changing, with Delhi Capitals, Gujarat Titans, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and Mumbai Indians taking up the top spot.
Mumbai Indians were perched at the top of the standings last week before they were pushed down by Royal Challengers Bengaluru, before Punjab Kings overtook and moved to the second position.
With the Mumbai Indians set to play the Gujarat Titans in their next match, there are chances that they could be pushed further down the standings. But if they win, they can join Royal Challengers Bengaluru and wrest back the top spot on a better net run rate. Though this constant swapping of the positions may be frustrating and irritating at times, Mumbai Indians' head coach Mahela Jayawardene said he is not bothered by these constant changes in the points table.
Jayawardene said this is not something that he and his team can control as the points table will be in a constant state of churning because of the tight race for the playoff spots.
"I mean, obviously, the number of games that you're playing and how that composition works, there is always going to be change, especially with Punjab Kings having that odd number because of the rain-off game.
"So, all those things that we as a franchise can't control or I as a coach can't control, I'll just focus on the game tomorrow, and then after that, the next game, we have three good games against us, which is good for us.
"So we just want to do what we've been doing, play some good cricket. The boys are focused on that, and the rest I can't control. So, my focus would be what they might control at this point and just keep focusing on," said Jayawardene in the pre-match press conference.
Jayawardene also said that pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, who missed the first few matches because of an injury, has fully recovered and his pace is getting better and better.
"Yeah, I mean, when we set up the team, retained him, we all knew how valuable he was going to be, and obviously we knew he wouldn't be available for the first few games, but he made a good recovery.
"Didn't take long for him to get into the stride as well. That's a good thing about Jasprit. He's got a lot of control and confidence in how he wants to go about it, and he gives us a completely different dimension to this attack, and everyone else also feeds off that, and we've seen that in the last four or five games," he said.
The Mumbai Indians head said though playing two of their last three league games at home in Wankhede was a good thing, he is not thinking so far ahead and only focusing on the next match.
"Well, I haven't thought that far out. When I saw the schedule, I knew that having to play your last two games out of the three at home obviously was a good thing. We were starting away from home, so we knew that, you know, that might come into play, and it has come to play.
"But I haven't thought about the playoffs. I think there are five or six teams in the race. So there are different permutations, and I'm not going to even go through that. How everything is going to end, we will see maybe in another five to six days when everyone maybe plays one more round to know where things are, and then we can probably gauge what we need to do," said Jayawardene.
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