The Mumbai Indians can be termed as one of the best Indian Premier League teams whose existence can be traced back to the year 2008. The owner of this team is none other than the most prominent Reliance Industries because it comprises 100% subsidiary in Indian Sports. This team has mostly played in the Wankhede stadium, which is one of the biggest stadiums of India.
Right now the value of the Mumbai Indian is no less than hundred and six million dollars which makes them one of the most costly franchises among the Indian Premier League franchises. This is because they have been a winning team and has won the 2011 Champions Twenty20 League after taking up gameplay with the Royal Challengers Bangalore. In 2013, they defeated the Chennai Super Kings to win its second Champions League Twenty20 trophy. And on May 2017, they want their third Indian Premier League Trophy by defeating the rising Pune supergiants in breakneck competition.
This is just a brief overview of the team that has been able to create its benchmark in the industry of cricket. Right now we will be talking about the history of the team and the struggles that it has faced in its journey.
Team history
Even though the Mumbai Indians look like they are very smoothly running team, yet the fact is the year 2008 and 2009 has been a period of immense struggle for them. In the Indian Premier League, many of the eminent cricketers were selected as an icon player in each and every team in accordance to the region where they belong. And similarly, in the case of Mumbai Indians, the icon player was the very famous Sachin Tendulkar. In the first session of the Indian Premier League, which was conducted in the year 2008 many famous International cricketers where bought namely Harbhajan Singh, Shaun Pollock, Sanath Jayasuriya, Lasith Malinga, and Robin Uthappa. As far as the Mumbai Indian coach is concerned, Lalchand Rajput was appointed as the head. But it was an immensely unfortunate fact that in the same year, Sachin Tendulkar got injured just before the league was going to start which is the reason why Harbhajan Singh was then appointed as the icon member of the Mumbai Indian team.
This was just the initial struggle among the other struggles that was yet to come. In the first match itself, they were defeated by the Royal Challengers Bangalore by five wickets on April 2008 and the captain Harbhajan Singh was also suspended from the tournament for abusing Sreesanth while they had a match against the Kings XI Punjab. There was again a leader change as Shaun Pollock took over till the time Sachin Tendulkar was ok and fit to return. Even while Mumbai Indians won 6 games consequently yet, they could not qualify for the final round.
It was in the year 2010 when Mumbai Indians became a very strong team, and they got Kieron Pollard and won 7 out of the total eight matches that they played.
The current Squad
Rohit Sharma
Hardik Pandya
Jasprit Bumrah
Krunal Pandya
Ishan Kishan
Suryakumar Yadav
Mayank Markande
Rahul Chahar
Anukul Roy
Siddhesh Lad
Aditya Tare
Evin Lewis
Kieron Pollard
Ben Cutting
Mitchell McClenaghan
Adam Milne
Jason Behrendorff
Quinton de Kock
Lasith Malinga
Anmolpreet Singh
Barinder Sran
Pankaj Jaswal
Rasikh Dar
Yuvraj Singh
Jayant Yadav
Team analysis
The strength of Mumbai Indians has definitely been its batting format along with its amazing bowling techniques. Like the last year now also the betting strategies look very promising and determined to take over the other teams. The core players like Surya Kumar Yadav and Evin Lewis have been able to add immense value to the team and can be used as amazing opening sportsmen.
On the other hand, people like Rohit Sharma Krunal Pandya and Hardik Pandya can be put in the middle range of cricketers who can put an extremely good closing if accompanied by players like Yuvraj Singh.
If we talk about the weaknesses, then the form of the batsman needs to be improved. Both Pollard and Yuvraj need to improve their batting techniques and as far as bowling is concerned Malinga is the strongest in the group as for now without whom the team would crumble. Mumbai Indians have been a team which gives opportunities to numerous new players and hopes to stride forward in the upcoming Indian Premier Leagues.