Mumbai Indians - Squad Analysis

Retaining Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah prior to the auctions, and then using Right To Match cards for Kieron Pollard and Krunal Pandya at the mega-auction in Bangalore, were some smart moves by the defending champions. By getting these 5 players back in their squad, the Mumbai Indians have been successful in getting their core team back, and have done well in building a team around.

The bowling department looks pretty decent. The left arm seamers - Mustafizur Rahman, Pradeep Sangwan and Jason Behrendorff would come handy for the Rohit Sharma lead team. The addition of Pat Cummins, makes the bowling-department look even better.

The all-rounders would be key for the Mumbai Indians this season. Major strength of the team revolves around the all-rounders. Mumbai, were successful to bring back the trio of the Pandya brothers and Kieron Pollard back in the squad, while they bought South Africa's limited over specialist, JP Duminy for 1 crore in the auction. All of the four players are highly skilled and proven all-rounders, who are pretty much handy with both bat and ball.

Batting is where I feel the defending champs will have some issues to deal with. I don't see much experience in the batting-department. Rohit Sharma and Evin Lewis will be the key batsmen for the team. Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya will be the finishers of the side. Saurabh Tiwary, with JP Duminy will be batting in the middle-order. To an extent, even the batting of the team will rely on the all-rounders of the team.

Here is my Playing XI from the squad:

1. Ishan Kishan (WK)
2. Evin Lewis
3. Rohit Sharma (Captain)
4. Saurabh Tiwary
5. Kieron Pollard/JP Duminy
6. Hardik Pandya
7. Krunal Pandya

8. Rahul Chahar
9. Mustafizur Rahman
10. Pat Cummins/Jason Behrendorff.
11. Jasprit Bumrah

We may see changes in the batting order, depending on the situation of where the game is standing! If wickets go early, we may see Krunal Pandya being promoted up the order.


Cheers,
Sparsh