Warner played a great innings all the way through: Tim Southee

A nightmarish start to their IPL 2016 campaign, notwithstanding, defending champions Mumbai Indians are counting on the positives and would look to focus on the upcoming matches of the tournament instead of looking back, said the team’s New Zealand fast bowler Tim Southeee.

Southee said without indulging in postmortening their third loss out of four matches this season, Mumbai India need to look ahead.

“It’s a team effort. It’s a long tournament. I think we cannot get too down. I think we leave that (the losses) and look forward to the next game,” Southee said after Mumbai India lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad by seven wickets.

“You cannot sort of hang on to performances that have gone otherwise. You got to learn and push the side in the course to the next one,” he said in the post-match press conference.

Stating that the team has got quality players, he hoped it is a matter of time before they came up with good performances in the ongoing IPL.

Southee appreciated Sunrisers captain David Warner, whose unbeaten knock of 90 powered the hosts to a comfortable win last night while chasing a modest 143-run target.

“That was not an ideal result (for Mumbai). It was nice to contribute but, may be, nice to contribute to a winning performance. But, Sunrisers played well, restricted us with the ball and then Warner played a great innings all the way through,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sunrisers Hyderabad batsman Eoin Morgan said it is imperative for the top-order to contribute to have successful campaigns in T20 tournaments like IPL.

“I think any successful campaign always has big contributions from the top-order. Whether it is top two, three or four, I think they are the ones who will contribute in successful campaigns,” he said.

He cited the examples of Warner’s 90 in yesterday’s match and also Quinton de Kock’s superb century the other day for Delhi Daredevils as a case in point.

Morgan complimented Bhuvneshwar Kumar and other Sunrisers’ bowlers for their brilliant performance
in restricting Mumbai to 142 for six.

“They (bowlers) played a huge role. Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar) was brilliant upfront, getting that first wicket (Martin) Guptill was a very good player. In the first six overs, they continued to take wickets. Rohit’s (Sharma) was obviously, quite big wicket in the context of the game,” he said.

He also praised the death bowling by Sunrisers bowlers and added that Bipul Sharma’s one over, in which the left arm spinner conceded 26 runs, cannot be singled out.

“I thought our death bowling was very good and Bhuvi again were brilliant. It was a strong point of our game last year. Hopefully, this year can be the same.

“I think, it’s unfair to single out one over of Bipul (Sharma). Because, he bowled three brilliant overs and he managed to stem the flow and not give Mumbai any momentum. So, I thought he bowled really well,” he said.