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

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.