Mumbai Indians are known for starting slow and then peaking at the right time. However, in IPL 2022, so far, MI has not looked confident of winning games. They have lost all the three games that they have played so far. There are multiple reasons why the five-time champions have not been able to open their points tally till now. In this article, we talk about three reasons why Mumbai Indians have struggled in the early part of the ongoing season.
1) An inexperienced bowling attack
One of the reasons why Mumbai Indians have struggled in the early part is because the team possesses an inexperienced bowling attack. Barring Jasprit Bumrah, the likes of Tymal Mills, Daniel Sams, Basil Thampi and Murugan Ashwin have all bowled very less in the history of the tournament.
In the second encounter against Rajasthan Royals, MI had to use Kieron Pollard as the sixth bowling option. Considering Mumbai has always had a good bowling attack, this season, they have not been able to do well because of a flaw in this department. MI does have a few reinforcements but it needs to be seen if they can perform well.
2) A lot of newcomers in the playing XI
Yes, every team has had newcomers in the playing XI but Mumbai Indians have them at important positions in the line-up, which has not worked in their favour. For instance, Murugan Ashwin, who has hardly played in IPL recently, leads the spin attack for the franchise.
Similarly, Tim David has replaced Hardik Pandya in the playing XI and although he is a good player, emulating Hardik right from the start is a difficult task. Daniel Sams has done well in BBL but he was tasked with both bowling at the start and at the death. This also did not work well for the unit.
3) Unavailability of Suryakumar Yadav for the first two games
Suryakumar Yadav was available for the team’s third game against KKR. He made a fifty and helped MI get a respectable total in the first innings. However, he was not available for the first two games.
SKY’s replacement Anmolpreet Singh could also not do well. Had SKY been present in the first two games, they could have done even better. His absence had a massive role to play in the disappointing start of the campaign for Mumbai.
