Mumbai, May 20 (IANS) After a poor start to the Indian Premier League (IPL), five-time champions Mumbai Indians face a moment of reckoning — a match at their home ground, by winning which they can seal the fourth and final spot in the playoffs.

Ahead of Wednesday’s crucial encounter with Delhi Capitals, Mumbai Indians’ head coach Mahela Jayawardene has one message to his players — control the controlables, go through the usual routine, follow their processes, and play according to the plan.

Mumbai are currently in fourth position with 14 points while DC are snapping at their heels with 13 points. Both have one more match each, but winning Wednesday’s clash will seal the playoffs spot for MI and end Delhi Capitals’ hopes. DC need to win both their remaining matches to qualify. Gujarat Titans, Punjab Kings, and Royal Challengers Bengaluru have already qualified for the playoffs.

On the eve of the match against Delhi Capitals at the Wankhede Stadium, Jayawardene said they want to focus only on things they can control and are not think about other things. He said giving their best in the match is something in their control.

“The message from me for the boys is to make sure that we go through our routines, our processes, the way we train, the way we plan, and the way we’ve got about this tournament.

“I’m very happy with the intensity, the way they’ve reacted to certain situations, and we just need to do the same; it’s that simple. So, I’m not thinking ahead or anything like that. It’s just that we’ve had a good week’s preparation and watched what the other teams were doing as well, how they came about. And we just need to go out and express ourselves and play a good game of cricket,” said Jayawardene in the pre-game conference on Tuesday.

Jaywardene said the Mumbai Indians were always in contention for a spot in the playoffs.

“Yeah, I think obviously, how much for push back, and we have to wait for the results to happen. But I think we were always in contention for for playoffs after we had that run (of six wins in a row). So, it’s good to start the tournament and play cricket. The guys have been waiting for this, training has been pretty good, and we just take one game at a time and see what we need to do,” said Jaywardene.

Mumbai need to win the match on Wednesday, which will take their tally to 16 points and seal their place in the next stage. If they lose on Wednesday, they will have to depend on beating Punjab Kings in their final league game and hope that PBKS also beat DC to settle things in their favour.

But Jaywardene said ideally, he would like to settle things on Wednesday and not depend on PBKS for charity.

“Yeah, like I said earlier, it’s better to have it in our control than anyone else’s and watch that situation. So we play good cricket to deserve to be in that situation and and we’ll we’ll go out and try and play our best game of cricket tomorrow,” he said.

The Mumbai Indians head coach also said that Will Jacks of England along with South African duo Corbin Bosch and Ryan Rickelton are available for selection for Wednesday’s match before they leave to play for their respective national teams.

“Whatever the timelines that we were given by those respective boards. So, until that time, they’ll be available,” he said, adding that Will Jacks will leave after the league stage while the South Africans are expected to depart after May 26.

–IANS

bsk/aaa