IPL 2018: Mumbai Indians' SWOT analysis

Going into the 2018 IPL, defending IPL champions Mumbai Indians are one of the title favourites as they have a squad that is capable of repeating last year's feat. Ahead of the tournament, the Mumbai Indians' think-tank did a fantastic job in the IPL auction.

They retained Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya going into the auction where they used their Right-to-Match cards on Krunal Pandya and Kieron Pollard. Apart from that, they made some decent buys in the form of Evin Lewis, Ishan Kishan, Pat Cummins, Mustafizur Rahman etc.

With a good squad at their disposal, it won't be a surprise if Mumbai Indians manage to win the IPL yet again. Let us take a look at their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats ahead of the 2018 IPL season opener against Chennai Super Kings on April 7.

Squad: Rohit Sharma (C), Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Mustafizur Rehman, Pat Cummins, Suryakumar Yadav, Krunal Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Rahul Chahar, Evin Lewis, Saurabh Tiwary, Ben Cutting, Pradeep Sangwan, JP Duminy, Mitchell McClenaghan, Tajinder Singh Dhillon, Sharad Lumba, Siddesh Lad, Tare, Mayank Markande, Akila Dhananjaya, Anukul Roy, Mohsin Khan, Nidheesh.

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Strengths

Evin Lewis can take the game away from the opposition in a matter of few balls

Batting order

Mumbai Indians have one of the deadliest batting orders in the IPL. Imagine Evin Lewis and Ishan Kishan walking out to open the batting for the defending champions followed by the tournament's third highest run-scorer of all-time, Rohit Sharma, as well as Kieron Pollard, Suryakumar Yadav, the Pandya brothers. If needed, they have Pat Cummins and Rahul Chahar, who are capable of scoring runs down the order.

Death bowling

Though Mumbai Indians' bowling attack might not be as threatening as their batting, they have the most lethal death bowling combination in the tournament. Without a doubt, Jasprit Bumrah is the best death-over specialist at the moment and backing him will be Bangladesh pacer Mustafizur Rahman, who is slowly getting his rhythm back. We have seen what these two are capable of in the previous editions and them playing together will make life difficult for the opposition batsmen in the death overs.

No strangers to pressure

Thriving under pressure is something that is very important in T20s. And Mumbai Indians are no strangers when it comes to handling the pressure as their core players have been there before and it should not be an issue for them in the upcoming edition as well.

Weakness

Krunal Pandya will have his task cut out in the IPL

Spin bowling

In spite of their deadly bowling line-up in the death overs, Rohit Sharma and Co. don't have a good spin attack as they have the likes of Krunal Pandya and Rahul Chahar in the spin department.

Krunal has been around for a while with the franchise and has won many matches with bat and ball. But, leading the spin line-up will be a huge challenge for the Baroda all-rounder as he has not done it in the past and doing it in a tournament like IPL is risky.

Along with Krunal, there is Rahul Chahar who will take care of the spin department. If you are not aware of who Rahul is, he is an under-19 spinner who was omitted from the Indian under-19 squad for the 2018 under-19 World Cup due to mysterious reasons.

Opportunity

A chance to emulate Chennai Super Kings

The only team to successfully defend the IPL title

In the first ten years of the IPL, we have seen six different teams winning the title and out of the six, only one team has managed to successfully defend the title.

After winning their first IPL title in 2010, the MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings managed to successfully defend their IPL crown in 2011 and till date, Chennai Super Kings are the only team to achieve that feat.

In spite of having the most number of IPL titles in their bag, Mumbai Indians cannot say that they managed to defend their IPL crown and this is the right chance for them to do that.

Threat

Mumbai Indians can't afford a slow start to the tournament

Complacency

Three IPL titles in five years, no other team in the IPL can say that they have achieved this feat. In fact, Mumbai Indians have won as many as three IPL titles, which is the most by any IPL side. There are more chances that the players might tend to be complacent and take things lightly, something that is highly unlikely to happen with the defending champions.

Slow start to the tournament

In spite of winning the tournament thrice, Mumbai Indians are very vulnerable at the start of the tournament. This is something that has been happening to them of late and whenever they managed to successfully overcome it, they went on to win the tournament. One cannot make a comeback like that every single time and Rohit Sharma and co. should be wary of the threat going into the tournament.