IPL 2022: What’s going wrong? The big problem areas for Mumbai Indians this season | Cricket News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: The most successful franchise in the history of the Indian Premier League, with five titles, Mumbai Indians are staring at an early exit from this edition with five consecutive defeats.
Winless this season, Rohit Sharma & Co. are languishing at the bottom of the points table.
TimesofIndia.com here looks at some of the main problem areas for one of the most popular franchises in the IPL:
Lack of big name match winners apart from the four retained players and Ishan Kishan
It is often said that a captain is only as good as his team. In Rohit Sharma, MI have a very capable captain, who has taken them to a record 5 IPL titles. But this season, after the major reshuffle that happened ahead of the last player auction, Rohit’s hands are tied a bit, in terms of the talent at his disposal.
MI did retain four of their biggest match winners in Rohit, Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav and Kieron Pollard, but a team needs more than four players to consistently win.

Mumbai’s performances so far this season have been a combination of two things: A. Key match winners not finding their rhythm yet and B. A lack of solid performers who can step up to the plate and fill the void of big name players not managing to deliver.
The one big positive for MI so far has been young South African Dewald Brevis power-hitting. The 18 year old, who was the Man of the tournament of the last edition of the ICC U-19 World Cup (506 runs in 6 innings) has been a really good buy. But again, he hasn’t found great support at the other end.
Jofra Archer missing out due to injury has been another big bow for the five time champions.
MI Squad 2022: Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav, Kieron Pollard, Ishan Kishan, Dewald Brevis, Basil Thampi, M Ashwin, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Markande, N Tilak Varma, Sanjay Yadav, Jofra Archer, Daniel Sams, Tymal Mills, Tim David, Riley Meredith, Mohammad Arshad Khan, Anmolpreet Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Rahul Buddhi, Hrithik Shokeen, Arjun Tendulkar, Fabian Allen, Aryan Juyal.

Key batters’ form
Rohit Sharma
Rohit Sharma is currently the Indian captain, across formats and is also MI captain and one of their key batsmen. Is the pressure of expectations getting to him? Rohit needs to fire at the top for MI to set the tone for the rest of the batting order.
In the five matches that Mumbai Indians have played so far, Rohit has scores of: 41, 10, 3, 26, 28. The failure to convert the good starts into big scores has hurt his team.

(BCCI/IPL Photo)
Ishan Kishan
The swashbuckling opener was bought back by Mumbai Indians in the auction for a jaw-dropping Rs 15.25 crore. The strategy to hold back most of their auction purse to buy back Ishan was questioned by many right after the auction. Ishan, who is one of the most talented young batsmen India has produced in recent times, had a fantastic start to IPL 2022, scoring an unbeaten 81 against Delhi Capitals in Mumbai’s first game. He followed it up with 54 against Rajasthan Royals, but since then has scored 14, 26 and 3.
With his opening partner and captain Rohit not amongst the runs as such, it is imperative for Ishant to deliver consistently.
Brittle middle order – Kieron Pollard struggling

Except for Suryakumar Yadav, there is hardly any impact player in the Mumbai Indians middle order. Kieron Pollard has been woefully out of form and has scores of 3, 22, 22*, 0 and 10 in the five matches for Mumbai Indians so far.
Barring Brevis, Suryakumar has been the only other bright spot in the Mumbai batting so far, but he missed the first two matches due to injury. Suryakumar has consistent scores of 52, 68* and 43 in the three matches he has played so far, but has again not got a whole lot of support from the other end.
19-year-old batting all-rounder Tilak Verma has looked good in phases, but needs to be more consistent.
Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav are among the top 10 highest run-getters of the tournament and yet MI are win-less. That goes to show the lack of batting firepower by the rest of the team so far.
Weak bowling attack and missing ex-core team players

It would be fair to say perhaps that Jasprit Bumrah is the only world class bowler in the Mumbai arsenal. And he too has taken only 4 wickets in the 5 matches so far. Jayadev Unadkat (1/44 in 4 overs), Basil Thampi (2/47 in 4 overs) and Tymal Mills (0/37 in 4 overs) were wayward and expensive in the match against Punjab Kings on Wednesday.
MI don’t have a single bowler in the top 14 highest wicket-takers of the season so far. Tymal Mills is in 15th place, with 6 wickets in 4 matches.
Mumbai also don’t have the services of the likes of Hardik and Krunal Pandya, Trent Boult and Rahul Chahar anymore. All four consistently gave the team vital breakthroughs and were live-wires on the field.
In the batting department, someone like Quinton de Kock is also being missed.
Lack of really big scores while batting first and leaking runs while bowling first
Teams batting second have had the upper hand so far in this edition of the IPL. Mumbai Indians, in the five matches they have played so far have batted second twice and lost on both occasions. The other three times when they batted first, they failed to defend scores of 177-5 (vs DC), 161-4 (vs KKR), despite having Kolkata on the ropes at 101-5 and 151-6 (vs RCB) – all three can be called moderate scores.
While bowling first in two games, the Mumbai bowlers have given away a lot of runs – Rajasthan Royals scored 193-8 against them and Punjab made 198-5.
What do you think is ailing Mumbai Indians the most this season so far? Take the TOI Poll here
Mumbai Indians now need a mini miracle to stay alive in IPL 2022, but their senior players have to take responsibility and deliver when the team needs them the most. Making the playoffs is still a possibility, with 9 league matches left to play. Mumbai have traditionally been slow starters, but now with the league having expanded to 10 teams, the margin for error has come down significantly.
But if there’s one team which knows how to crawl out of a hole like the one they find themselves in currently, it’s Mumbai. In the 2015 IPL season, they lost 5 of their first 6 games and went on to win the title.