IPL 2018: How each franchise might line up

#2 Mumbai Indians

Variety of bowlers will help MI restrict other teams

List of players bought by the MI at the IPL 2018 auction –

Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Kieron Pollard, Pat Cummins, Evin Lewis, Suryakumar Yadav, Ben Cutting, Mustafizur Rahman, Rahul Chahar, Pradeep Sangwan, Jason Behrendorff, Jean-Paul Duminy, Saurabh Tiwary, Tajinder Dhillon, Akila Dhananjaya, Aditya Tare, Siddhesh Lad, Mayank Markande, Sharad Lumba, Anukul Roy, Mohsin Khan, MD Nidheesh

The only team to win IPL three times will come in with a mindset to defend the title. Mumbai tried to retain as many old players as they could and tried to maintain the balance of their side along with some useful additions.

Rohit Sharma will lead the Mumbai squad which has an experienced coaching staff with some big names like Sachin Tendulkar, Mahela Jayawardene, Shane Bond, Lasith Malinga and Robin Singh.

Mumbai bought a lot of bowlers and all-rounders in this auction and strengthened their bowling. Here's how MI could line up:

R Sharma(c), I Kishan, S Yadav; JP Duminy; K Pandya; H Pandya; K Pollard; A Tare(wk); M McClenaghan; J Bumrah; M Rahman

Mumbai are looking good with their bowling options and the all-rounders as they will have 6-7 bowlers in their lineup. This will ease the pressure on Sharma and give him options to choose from according to the situation.

Bumrah and Rahman are great bowlers who can restrict any team from scoring heavily in the death overs. They need an experienced batsman in the middle order who can control the pace of the innings and keep scoring from one end.

They will have to depend a lot on their skipper and JP Duminy to play that role because the other batsmen like Pollard, Suryakumar and Pandya brothers are more comfortable with power hitting.