It’s all going wrong for Mumbai Indians in this season’s IPL. They remain winless having played 3 matches so far. This is in a way not too different from last season, when Mumbai Indians lost their first five matches on a trot only to recover somewhat and even make it to the playoffs.
But the problems with Mumbai Indians are serious and they don’t seem to be having the same quality that they had last season. They have brought in Unmukt Chand and Parthiv Patel for Aditya Tare and Ambati Raydu. Neither of the two new players have ever set the IPL on fire.
There haven’t been any great additions to the Mumbai side either. They play the same team, which has only become staler as IPL season after season passes on. Harbhajan Singh is nowhere close to playing for India any longer, and his international career is virtually over. But for Mumbai, he is the main strike bowler. This just goes to show the serious deficiency of talent in the Mumbai set-up.
Their main batsman is Rohit Sharma. He is a good player, but nowhere in the class of say, Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers, all of who play for Royal Challengers Bangalore.
In contrast, Chennai Super Kings have a very good, solid side which hasn’t lost a single match so far in the IPL. And it will take a really good team to beat them, which Mumbai clearly are not. For Chennai Super Kings, Suresh Raina will be back after taking time out to get married to his childhood sweetheart.
He hasn’t played much recently, so it’s hard to tell how Raina’s return will affect the Chennai Super Kings team balance. Captain M S Dhoni seems to be remarkably fresh even after 5 tiring and emotionally exhausting months in Australia, and a terrible loss in the semi-finals of the World Cup just over a month ago.
Mumbai won’t have Aaron Finch playing for them this season, as he is out because of a painful hamstring injury. His replacement is Lendl Simmons from the West Indies, who is clearly not in the same class as Finch.
Mumbai’s team selections have raised eye brows. None more so than picking Unmukt Chand for big money. Unmukt was the much celebrated captain of the Indian team that won the Under-19 World Cup. He even won several advertising contracts based on his youth appeal. But with the bat, Unmukt has turned out to be a dud.
He has played for 3 IPL teams so far, made just 210 runs from 15 innings, averaging a pathetic 14 with a strike rate of 91.30. This are terrible figures to have and just goes to show how some players get over hyped by the media at a very young age and allow their initial success to get to their head.
IPL makes instant heroes out of young players, and when they fail to perform, they are back to where it all began yet again. Unmukt is discovering the realities of the IPL the hard way.
Watch the Mumbai Indians take on Chennai Super Kings at 8:00 PM on Friday, live on Sony Six!
