Musings

So far Mumbai Indians have won 3 matches out of 6 and are placed at no.7 in the Points table. It is a miracle that they have earned six points. Their middle order is hardly doing anything. The captain Hardik Pandya has not yet found his touch with the bat. Rohit, Ishan Kishan and now Surya are doing bulk of the scoring. Importantly, they have a poor attack. They have only one world class bowler in Bumrah but he can bowl only 4 overs. The rest are pedestrian. They don't have the skills required for T20 cricket. Very few can bowl the slow ball well. Spinners are extremely ordinary. If you compare MI with other teams the difference can be easily noticed. Most teams bat deep. Punjab has exciting young players in Shashank and Ashutosh. Chennai has Dhoni who comes to bat at no. 8 or 9. Abhishek Sharma, another blazing young talent, is giving Hyderabad the edge. In terms of skills, this year's IPL has moved ahead a few steps. The teams who are not keeping up will perish. Perhaps that ...

Replacing Rohit Sharma with Hardik Pandya as captain of Mumbai Indians for IPL 2024 has unleashed myriad reactions from all quarters. It seems to have strained relations between the two. It is only human as Rohit has led MI to 5 IPL trophies and is well liked by his teammates. However, if you consider Rohit's performance both as a batsman and as a captain in the last two years, you would feel some justification in the decision. Both the players need to handle it professionally rather than emotionally. Now there is news that Rohit will leave MI next year. That would be quite unfortunate. This might have been a factor in MI's loss of first 3 matches. But this sort of start is customary for them. One can see that Rohit is trying his best to come to terms with the new situation. The booing that Hardik is getting from the public is quite unfair and should stop forthwith. Team has spent last few days at Jamnagar facility to bond. Hopefully, it will help and reflect in today's mat...