IPL: Mumbai Indians Season Review

Mumbai Indians had yet another disappointing IPL season inspite of being pre-tournament favourites. They had brought in Pragyan Ojha, Dinesh Karthik and RP Singh to fortify their squad at the start of the season.

Inspite of some shoddy performances, Mumbai Indians played good enough cricket to make it to the knockout round of the tournament with their games against Chennai Super Kings (home), Kolkata Knight Riders (away) and Pune Warriors (away) being the highpoints.

Lasith Malinga was yet again the top performer for Mumbai Indians with the ball as he took 22 wickets giving away runs at the rate of 6.30 per over. In his absence or on occasions when he proved expensive, not much support came from other bowlers. In critical games that made a big difference for Mumbai. Harbhajan Singh, at one point in time India’s top spinner, lacked consistency and bite.

Sachin Tendulkar’s injury and patchy form and Mumbai Indians’ inability to find a destructive opening partner for him meant that Mumbai struggled at the top of the batting order. Dwayne Smith’s late introduction as an opener also proved to be a short-lived success. Rohit Sharma and Ambati Rayudu played some match winning innings but Dinesh Karthik proved to be a flop buy with the bat inspite of dexterity behind the stumps.

Harbhajan’s captaincy lacked imagination. Mumbai Indians used 24 players while most other teams used less number of players throughout the tournament. It indicated their struggle to find the best playing XI.