IPL 2022: What is going wrong with Mumbai Indians? Should Rohit Sharma move away from captaincy?

1 Missing mojo in batting

The Mumbai Indians always had a capable batting unit and they have retained some of the core unit members like captain Rohit Sharma, Kieron Pollard, Suryakumar Yadav and brought back Ishan Kishan. The core is there then.

But they are not firing as the MI camp would like. What has hurt them most is the lack of runs from Rohit at the top. He has so far managed 54 runs from 3 matches, and 41 runs came in one innings and his strike-rate is a well below-par 110. He needs to engineer a turnaround at the earliest, a firing Rohit Sharma would change the look of MI.

Newcomer Tilak Verma has made an impression but they are clearly missing Hardik’s firepower down the order, someone who can make big difference when it comes to those 20-30 runs at the death.

2 Lonely Bumrah & sagging bowling unit

In IPL 2022, Jasprit Bumrah is Mumbai Indians’ lone war horse in bowling department. Until 2021, they had the likes of Trent Boult and Rahul Chahar to share the bowling burden and now they have left the team. The replacements like M Ashwin, Tymal Mills and Daniel Same are not in the same league, especially when compared to someone like Boult. Sams have played just 7 T20Is and Mills appeared in 12 T20Is and are not in regular scheme of things of Australia and England.

Mills has taken 6 wickets from three matches, MI’s top wicket-taker so far in IPL 2022, but has not been able to stem the run flow as his run-rate of 9.9, second only to Sams’ 12.63 among regular bowlers. This middling attack with focus on one man can hamper MI. Basil Thampi showed flashes of coming to terms with the needs of IPL but he needs to be more consistent.

3 Wanted, an all-rounder

MI had let go Hardik Pandya ahead of IPL 2022 auction and as Gujarat Titans have picked him up in the draft, the Indians could not attempt to buy him back. Now, the MI are left with hardly any choice in the all-rounder category. Daniel Sams is considered as an all-rounder but has not delivered the goods yet either with bat or ball and Pollard bowls rarely these days. They don’t have an Indian player in the calibre of Pandya, and they even don’t have Krunal Pandya too. It has affected the team’s dynamics as they now look a disjointed band without balance.

4 Rohit, Getting it heavy skip?

It is getting clearer that Rohit Sharma will be challenged as captain and man manager this IPL 2022. He no longer has a settled MI line-up and has to alter his methods a bit and train the new players to get on board with MI philosophy. It is not easy and he also has to make a turnaround in his batting fortunes. Or should he let go of the captaincy as now he is the full-time India captain in all three formats too. Is it getting heavier for him to carry a four-pronged log on his shoulders?