The 18th season of the Indian Premier League has arrived with all teams having new squads, with Mumbai Indians bagging a bunch of quality players to once again form a star studded lineup like those in their prime days. The return of Trent Boult along with the addition of Mitchell Santner and Deepak Chahar has greatly restored MI’s bowling to one of the best in IPL. The deadly duo of Bumrah and Boult was certainly missed by the fans and their return is a pleasant surprise to them.
Mitchell Santner, the current captain of NZ’s cricket team has been in great form lately which is very good news for the franchise. This is also a huge opportunity for him to use his own captaincy skills to assist the team in crucial decision making, while also gaining substantial experience as a captain himself. Fans of MI vs CSK rivalry will be extra pleased by his and Chahar’s arrival since these star players were stolen directly from CSK.
Another player to watch out for is Tilak Varma, who has been rising rapidly as a cricketer. His talent as a youngster and presence in the team will surely lift both the team’s performance and spirits. He has been growing into a more aggressive, consistent and confident sportsperson, as reflected in his swashbuckling 151 off 67 in the recently concluded Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Even though it is a low level tournament, this level of dominating performance in it shows how he’s clearly getting closer to the likes of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli etc. although he still has a long way to go.
Mumbai Indians’ squad, however, is not without its shortcomings. The team’s decision to invest heavily in overseas players has led to a conundrum, as they are faced with the challenge of selecting only four foreign players in the playing XI. Among their quality overseas recruits are Trent Boult, Mitchell Santner, Will Jacks, Ryan Rickelton, Reece Topley, and Mujeeb ur Rahman. This roster dilemma highlights the difficulty of accommodating all these talented players while maintaining the required balance in the team. The acquisitions of Ryan Rickelton and Reece Topley, in particular, stand out as questionable choices, given the presence of other elite foreign players like Boult, Santner, and Jacks, who are integral to the team’s composition and have their spots cemented. Same goes for Mujeeb Ur Rahman, who is a quality finger spinner, but not worth the buy due to the limit on overseas players in the XI. There is also no quality Indian replacement for them, forcing MI to use uncapped players, which is a very unfavourable decision for any team. They barely had any uncapped players in their prime years.
There was a very simple way to avoid this blunder, i.e., investing all the money put in buying Topley, Mujeeb and Rickelton into Ishan Kishan. He has not been in spotlight lately but showed signs of improvement after his recent downfall in the previous IPLs. MI have 23 players in their squad, while an IPL squad requires only 18 to eligible. Instead of spending cash on buying those 5 extra players, it should’ve been put on Kishan. The three aforementioned overseas players and the costliest buys among uncapped Indians could’ve been sacrificed to minimise the setback of spending huge on retaining Ishan. The bidders’ approach of filling in the spots instead of making a strong team is highly reprehensible and contemptible, as this same approach somewhat lead to weak squads in the previous few years, as MI has lost 10 league stage matches in two seasons since IPL 2021. Retaining that one single quality keeper instead of two uncapped Indian keepers and one cumbersome one(Ryan Rickelton) would’ve been a much better decision. Him being in SRH’s deadly batting lineup also means he’ll be used against them, though that it inevitable if you release a player into another team.
An ideal XI is one which is star studded and full of reputed and dangerous players, which MI used to have in their prime days.
However, in my opinion, MI can make the best out of their current squad with this XIs for different conditions:-
Batting pitches:
Rohit Sharma
Will Jacks
Suryakumar Yadav
Tilak Varma
Ryan Rickelton(W)
Hardik Pandya(C)
Naman Dhir
Mitchell Santner
Deepak Chahar
Jasprit Bumrah
Trent Boult
Looking at the positive side, those three overseas players still show some promise with their recent rises in the sport, and have the potential to deliver great performances. Also even though the XI below could’ve been far more dominating, proved by how well Ishan Kishan is playing in SRH’s practice matches, the XIs above also has only 1-2 uncapped players at most. Although the presence of a capped player like Kishan in those 1-2 spots can still cause a huge difference, the majority of the XI containing star players is a positive aspect of the team.
Had Ishan Kishan been brought instead of them, the ideal playing XI would’ve been:
Rohit Sharma
Will Jacks
Suryakumar Yadav
Tilak Varma
Ishan Kishan(W)
Hardik Pandya(C)
Mitchell Santner
Deepak Chahar
Jasprit Bumrah
Trent Boult
Reece Topley(replaced my Mujeeb Ur Rahman in some cases)
Of course, there is no need to
However, MI’s squad is not completely weak and given captain Pandya’s recent glow up and presence of three international captains(Rohit Sharma[Indian ODI and Test captain], Suryakumar Yadav(Indian T20 captain) and Mitchell Santner[NZ’s white ball captain]); if lead effectively, the team can still deliver dominating performances and win the IPL like they have done in the past. They have a squad which is capable of bringing the IPL trophy home after 5 long years.
