Happy with bowling, batting needs improvement: MI coach Ponting

Mumbai, April 20। Ahead of their game against Royal Challengers Bangalore, Mumbai Indians head coach Ricky Ponting on Tuesday praised the team's bowling unit for being consistent but wanted the batsmen to step up and perform better in upcoming games.

After getting off to a losing start to their campaign against Rising Pune Supergiants, defending champions Mumbai came back strongly with a thumping win over Kolkata Knight Riders, but suffered two consecutive losses against Gujarat Lions and Sunrisers Hyderabad to have them tottering in the seventh position in the points table with just two points from four games.

"We have been disappointing so far, the team didn't play the way we wanted and would have liked to. But obviously we had one very good win against Kolkata Knight Riders. But apart from that our batting hasn’t been good enough yet. The guys are aware the way I want them to play and how they should play," Ponting said at a pre-match press conference here.

Failure to get their team combination right has resulted in a series of losses for Mumbai.

"Our bowling has been pretty good right throughout the tournament. (Tim) Southee and (Mitchell) McClaneghan have been good, outstanding and (Jasprit) Bumrah has also been consistent but we haven't had enough runs yet. We need to play 40 overs of good cricket but till now e have played only 30 overs, so we need to step up and deliver as a team," the former Australia skipper said.

Agency