Mumbai Indians have lost seven games in a row in IPL 2022. The five-time champions, with no points, sit at the bottom of the points table. Their mentor, cricket great Sachin Tendulkar, explained the team’s disastrous campaign saying that Rohit Sharma co have failed to grab crunch moments. 

MI will now face the Lucknow Super Giants at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday. 

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Sachin Tendulkar was the icon for the Mumbai Indians in 2008. The batting legend, only one to score hundred international tons across formats, played for the five-time champions till 2013, when they lifted their first IPL trophy. He then took up mentoring and has been associated to the side in the role since. 

After closely observing MI’s campaign this year, Tendulkar on Star Sports told former Australian opener Matthew Hayden that T20 is a cruel format. He added that Mumbai Indians need to conquer the small margins. 

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“Let’s first understand that in this format there isn’t a team who has not experienced what Mumbai Indians have experienced this season. This format can be cruel. And those crucial moments in a match which don’t go in your favour then literally the margin is like… you lose a game by two or three runs or sometimes even the last ball,” MI mentor Sachin Tendulkar said. 

He further added the crunch moments have not gone MI’s way. 

“And those smaller margins, we need to go out and conquer those moments, those crunch moments in the match are what we have to win. And they haven’t gone our way,” he said.

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While, Mumbai have failed as a unit, several youngsters have stepped up. Tilak Varma and Dewald Brevis are the team’s biggest finds this season. 

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“I would like to clarify one more point: in spite of having had a challenging season the boys have gone out and worked as hard as possibly they could during their practice sessions. This is a new team, a young team. It may take a little more time to settle down, but these phases are such where you have to ride through these phases, stick together as a team and find the solution,” Tendulkar added.