Image Credit- BCCI
After ten games, with virtually little chance of qualifying for the playoffs, it is depressing to witness one of the greatest IPL teams tour India with their awful performance.
It’s not like Indians in Mumbai have completely collapsed. In the 2024 Indian Premier League, Jasprit Bumrah is the top bowler with 14 wickets, an economy rate of 6.40, and a dominant record. With 13 wickets, Gerald Coetzee is not far behind.
Furthermore, we are aware of the main problems, or at least where they are located. Their 19 powerplay wicket losses this season rank second worst in the league (lost by Delhi Capitals, who have lost 21). Their top five players have scored goals rather swiftly, but they have also given up too many easy points; their combined average of 29.10 is only higher than that of the Punjab Kings and Gujarat Titans, who are also stuck in the bottom part of the standings.
They have struggled miserably to bowl, especially in the middle overs (overs 7 to 16), when Bumrah usually bowls the least. They travelled at an economy of 10.21 throughout that interval, conceding 60 sixes (the Chennai Super Kings had an economy rate of 7.67 during that same period). On the spin front, they have been especially lacking. Piyush Chawla, their best slow bowler, with four wickets in seven matches and an over-bowl average of 9.85 runs given up. Despite being slightly less expensive, Mohammad Nabi has been less effective, capturing just two wickets in six bowling innings.
Though many have blamed Hardik Pandya’s leadership, there is no apparent explanation for why their entire team is playing so much below ability except from Bumrah and possibly Coetzee. As in the encounter against Lucknow Super Giants, however, MI’s greatest flaws have been with the bat. In this game, they lost Rohit Sharma in the second over (Rohit, by the way, has batted as selflessly as he had in the 2023 ODI World Cup, just without anywhere near as much success), Suryakumar Yadav in the third, then Tilak Varma and Hardik in successive balls in the sixth.
In what is shaping to be the highest-scoring IPL history, a scoreline of 28 for 4 in the powerplay was always going to be impossible to recover from. But much harder for a squad struggling to stay afloat in the standings, with hitters who have barely appeared this season.
They have very serious decisions to make now. Do they overhaul their misfiring top order, or back players of the quality of Suryakumar, Ishan Kishan, and Rohit to turn their seasons around? Do they dip deeper into their reserves in their attempts to find new middle-overs talents?
With so much data on offer now, it is simple enough to diagnose a losing team’s flaws. What MI have to figure out is to what extent they need new personnel to fix them.