What Mumbai Indians need to do at the 2017 IPL auction

02/18/2017

One of the most successful teams in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Mumbai Indians, in this edition, must be looking forward to shrugging off their disappointing campaign of last year. So, whom should the Rohit Sharma-led franchise target in this year’s auction?

How they performed last season:-

Mumbai Indians had entered the 2016 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) as the defending champions and they had also retained their core team from the previous season- including skipper Rohit Sharma, Ambati Rayudu, Kieron Pollard, Harbhajan Singh, and Mitchell McClenaghan. They had also added Jos Buttler, Tim Southee, and Krunal Pandya to their ranks, which made them a strong contender for the Trophy. But the Mumbai side couldn’t build on those resources and for the first time since 2009, failed to qualify for the play-offs, ending the tournament at the fifth position in the points table. So, what went wrong with the team?

From the very beginning of the season, the side was struck by some major injury blows. West Indian batsman Lendl Simmons, who had played a crucial role in the semifinal match against India at the World T20, played only the opening match before being ruled out for the rest of the season due to a back injury. Star pacer Lasith Malinga was also ruled out without playing a match due to continuous struggles with his left knee. An opening loss to debutants neighbors Rising Pune Supergiants kicked off another slow start to a season as Mumbai lost four of their first six matches.

Although they bounced back with three wins, those were not sufficient to compensate the early losses to go to the top. Their batting unit had struggled to adapt to the stickier surfaces of the adopted home ground of ACA-VDCA Stadium in Vishakhapatnam. Two heavy defeats towards the end of the season rattled them at the wrong time as they lost their last league match to Gujarat Lions, which ended their hopes of making the play-offs.

Players Retained: (20) Rohit Sharma, Kieron Pollard, Lasith Malinga, Harbhajan Singh, Ambati Rayudu, Jasprit Bumrah, Shreyas Gopal, Lendl Simmons, Vinay Kumar, Parthiv Patel, Mitchell McClenaghan, Nitish Rana, Siddhesh Lad, J Suchith, Hardik Pandya, Jos Buttler, Tim Southee, Jithesh Sharma, Krunal Pandya, Deepak Punia

Players Released: (8) Corey Anderson, Marchant de Lange, Unmukt Chand, Akshay Wakhare, Nathu Singh, Kishore Kamath, Martin Guptill, Jerome Taylor

Auction budget: INR 11.555 crore

What they need to eye at the auction:-

The Nita Ambani-owned franchise is known to spring the cat out of the hat by picking uncapped players with a high price. But this year, they have retained a total of 20 players, which means the team is pretty well-settled in all three departments. So, while going into the auction, Mumbai needs to listen more to their head as they now have the smallest purse among all the eight teams to fill the remaining seven spots.

Mumbai Indians have released Kiwi all-rounder Corey Anderson and opener Martin Guptill and might well be looking forward to buying a marquee all-rounder and a couple of batsmen at this year’s auction. In the form of Kieron Pollard, Mumbai has only one overseas all-rounder in their arsenal and they must need one more to cover him up in the case of injury or bad form.

So, who better than Ben Stokes at the moment? The English all-rounder has been in sublime form lately and been bracketed under 2 crores base-price. But the one thing that goes against Stokes is that he is supposed to leave IPL early to prepare for the home series against South Africa. Mumbai might well go for Baroda all-rounder Irfan Pathan, who was released by the Supergiants. Of late, Pathan, who is playing in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Tournament, has also been in good form.

After releasing Guptill, Mumbai will surely look forward to bring an overseas opener to the team. Jason Roy and Colin Munro are two players that Mumbai should focus on at the auction. Roy has already shown his brilliance in the Indian conditions in the limited-over series against India, and that gives him an edge over Kiwi batter Munro.

Then comes the pace bowling department. In Lasith Malinga, Mitchell McClenaghan, Tim Southee, and Jasprit Bumrah, Mumbai has a potent pace attack to take any opposition down. So, they shouldn’t go for a marquee pacer and instead focus on quality domestic players.

In K Vignesh, Aswin Crist, Mohammed Siraj, Mumbai have three good options available to choose. Vignesh and Crist were instrumental in Tamil Nadu’s impressive journey to the semi-finals in the Ranji Trophy, picking 37 and 35 wickets respectively. Apart from Vignesh and Crist, Hyderabad’s Mohammed Siraj can be a handy option for the Mumbai-based franchise.

In the Ranji Trophy, Siraj finished with 41 wickets with a very good average. His ability to chip in with notable performances despite the presence of Chama Milind and M Ravi Kiran, and to end up with a bigger share of scalps than them, speaks volumes about the ability of the young pacer. So, he won’t be a bad catch at all.

Players they should target: - Jason Roy, Colin Munro, Ben Stokes, Angelo Mathews, Irfan Pathan, Mohammed Siraj, K Vignesh, and Aswin Crist