"You would have never known that they have lost eight in a row" - Bowling coach Shane Bond on MI's team spirit in IPL 2022
Mumbai Indians (MI) bowling coach Shane Bond hailed the team's bonding despite having an underwhelming season. MI created an unwanted record of being the only IPL team to lose their first eight games in a row.
However, the 46-year-old stressed how glued the team members were together despite results not going their way. They supported each other during their rough patch on the field and Bond found that heartening to see.
Speaking in an exclusive chat with Sportskeeda, here's what Shane Bond had to say about MI's dressing room atmosphere during the IPL 2022 season:
"The good thing is that the guys were great. Often when you are losing you can splinter and have small groups and have bitchiness. But with this group you would have never known that they have lost eight in a row. They are a happy group, they work hard."
Shane Bond feels that youngsters like Dewald Brevis, Tilak Varma and Tim David, who played a few matches this season, will only get better next year. He added:
"Certainly, some of the young players like Tim David would have got some experience and we should be able to perform a lot better next season."
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MI's recent success meant that expectations were high: Shane Bond
MI are still the most successful IPL franchise with all five of their titles coming within the past ten years. However, Bond opined that this time, they had a new-look team and it isn't always easy to hit the ground running right from the start. On this, he stated:
"It was tough because ultimately every season you go into, you want to win the championship. Given that we had success in recent years meant that the expectations were high. We had a new team and obviously we didn't perform as well as we should have really in the first half of the tournament. It was a disappointing tournament overall."
MI had a disappointing IPL 2022 season, finishing bottom of the league standings, but have most of the ingredients to make a strong comeback next season.