IPL 2022: Can the Mumbai Indians turn around their season?

Mumbai Indians are known to be perennial slow starters in the IPL. The last time they won their first match of the season was all the way back in 2012, when - ironically - they beat Chennai Super Kings in the opening game of the season. Since then, they have gone on to lose their first game of every season.

What makes this interesting is that before 2012, Mumbai had never won the title. Fast forward 10 years to 2022 and they are the most successful franchise in the history of the league, having won the title five times-in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020, and they entered the list of IPL winners. They have become synonymous with success, and the 2020 Mumbai Indians squad was widely considered one of the most ruthless ever assembled.

Check out the IPL purple cap 2022 here.

So what went wrong and why are Mumbai Indians languishing at the wrong end of the table 2 years later?

The simplest answer to that: Two new IPL teams and the IPL 2022 mega auction. Mumbai Indians had to start from scratch and try to replicate their champion squad, which was a very tough task for a number of reasons.

Firstly, all of their players from the previous year were hot property during the auction, which meant that it was impossible for them to buy back the likes of Quinton de Kock, Trent Boult, Rahul Chahar, and Krunal Pandya - all of whom were pivotal in their title winning campaigns in previous years.

The only big player they did buy back was Ishan Kishan but he came at a ginormous price of ₹ 15.25 crores which severely depleted their purse and affected their ability to make other purchases. Ultimately, they ended up with a rather inexperienced squad with a number of shortcomings, which has been examined in detail in this article.

These very shortcomings have led to Mumbai losing all of their four opening fixtures, and having a net run rate that would raise some concerns in the camp, given the competitiveness of a 10 team tournament.

In this article, we take a look at 3 things Mumbai Indians could do to turn their fortunes around in this edition of the Indian Premier League.

Mumbai Indians are no strangers to losing matches in bunches at the start of the season

Mumbai Indians' worst starts to an IPL season:

Five defeats in 2014

Four defeats in 2008

Four defeats in 2015 (finished as Champions)

Four defeats in 2022 *

Three defeats in 2018

Four of the five seasons (2008, 2014, 2018 & 2022) were the seasons immediately after a mega auction. What stands out here is 2015, when they finished as champions after losing the first four matches of the tournament.

Rohit Sharma, Kieron Pollard and Jasprit Bumrah were all part of the team that won the title then, and are the core of the current team as well. So if anyone can storm back into the tournament from such a bad position, it's those guys.

Also, with Mahela Jayawardene, Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Shane Bond, Robin Singh and Co., there is no shortage of star power and quality guidance in the support staff as well.

With that in mind, let's look at 3 things Mumbai Indians need to change to improve their chances:

1) Pacers leaking runs

Mumbai Indians' pacers have been the least economical of all sides this year, conceding at a rate of 9.6 runs per over, which is one of the root causes of their failures as a team.

None of the bowlers, bar Jasprit Bumrah to some extent, have been able to keep a lid on the runs conceded, with Sams, Mills, Thampi all being taken to the cleaners game after game. Sams and Mills were even dropped from the squad despite the latter being the leading wicket-taker for the Mumbai Indians.

A quick fix to this issue is to bring in Riley Meredith and/or Mohd. Arshad Khan. While neither of them guarantee low economy rates, Meredith adds sheer pace to the attack while Khan adds a potential left-arm option in the powerplay which could allow for more of Jasprit Bumrah in the latter half of the innings.

The pace attack has been consistently leaking runs

2) Spinners in the middle overs

A big factor in Mumbai Indians' successes in 2020 was the ability of Rahul Chahar and Krunal Pandya to dictate the game in the middle overs and keep the opposition in check - something has been very evidently missing from this year's attack.

Murugan Ashwin has been the lone spinner, with Tilak Varma and Dewald Brewis offering part-time options but they simply aren't good enough. What makes it worse is that Ashwin himself has been conceding plenty of runs.

A solution to this issue is to bring in Fabian Allen to play the Krunal Pandya role and maybe attack the opposition with Murugan Ashwin in the powerplay, where he has been much better than the middle overs. This also allows an extra over or two of pace later on, which could make a big difference. If Ashwin continues to underperform, Mayank Markande is a like-for-like replacement waiting in the wings.

3) Batters not stepping up

Heading into the season, what most teams envied about the Mumbai Indians was their batting lineup. A lineup of Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav and Kieron Pollard is enough to strike fear into the hearts of anyone. Add to that the talent of Tilak Varma and it's befuddling how the Mumbai Indians are yet to post a substantial score on the board.

Ishan Kishan started off the season in hot form, scoring back-to-back fifties, but his scores have dropped in the last two matches. Rohit Sharma has gotten off to decent starts but has thrown away his wicket on multiple occasions, while Kieron Pollard is currently in arguably one of the worst patches of his IPL career.

Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan are one of the best opening pairs in the tournament, but are yet to fire together

The only bright spot has been Suryakumar Yadav, who - since his return from injury - has scored brilliant consecutive fifties, both in situations when the team was in a precarious position.

While there are no potential changes that can be made to the top order, Mumbai Indians might consider doing the unthinkable and dropping Kieron Pollard and, instead, giving the young Tim David - on whom they spent more than ₹ 8 crores - an extended run. Other than that, there is nothing they can do but cross their fingers and hope that this batting lineup explodes and covers up the shortcomings of their misfiring bowling attack.

Potential comeback XI

Rohit Sharma (c), Ishan Kishan (wk), Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav, Ramandeep Singh/Anmolpreet Singh/Sanjay Yadav, Kieron Pollard/Tim David, Fabian Allen, Riley Meredith, Tymal Mills, Jasprit Bumrah, Murugan Ashwin