IPL 2020 | Why your team sucks - Mumbai Indians

09/18/2020

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Many people are fans of the Mumbai Indians but I’m still struggling to find out why, given that they don’t even play beautiful cricket and often are helped by their back pockets. This is perfect for the other percentage of people, who hate the franchise, including me, so hop on this ride!

They might be your champions but they are nothing but a rich bunch of show-stars, who casually just flaunt their watches for the media to uncover its price. If you think that’s all there is about the franchise, you are terribly wrong, wait and watch as they are more reasons to hate the franchise than it meets the eye!

Your Team: A rich bunch of show-stars

Your 2019 record

Nine wins- Five losses, including a two-peat against Chennai Super Kings. It was like watching how the economy works, the more the money, the higher the value in the society. In this case, the IPL table. While the other franchises’ might have struggled to garner wins, it was never the issue with Mumbai, cause they were just one call away from a win, *wink* umpire-ahem.

But do you think everything was smooth? Even with the umpires in the first game, they could not win against an Ishant Sharma led bowling attack, shame on you Mumbai after your so-called documentary on Netflix, where you tried to go All-or-nothing way and ended up with nothing. Out of all people in the dressing room, Yuvraj had to bail you out on that one, so well that says a lot! Against RCB, a six-run victory, just after Kohli’s side were reduced to club cricketers against Chennai the other day. It definitely required a choke-job from RCB to give Mumbai this victory.

A loss against Punjab, which you can’t even explain, given that Punjab finished the season with just six wins. They then won two-in-a-row batting first, against Chennai stupid Kings, who can’t save their lives outside of Chepauk and Chennai and against Sunrisers, they needed Alzarri Joseph to step up, as the Pandyas couldn’t. When Rohit Sharma was gone from the team, they needed Kieron Pollard to pull off a freak show to just sneak them past Punjab, now if that doesn’t tell you about their run into the last stage, nothing would!

Somehow, they found a way to lose against the Royals twice, in between their wins is just staggering, Royals had just five wins, two of which came against Mumbai, the so-called the best team last season. Well, kudos!

Your coach: Mahela Jayawardene

The more you look at him, it looks like Mumbai are moving away from T20 cricket and descending into Test cricket. But in reality also, since Jayawardene has walked in, Rohit Sharma has averaged the least he has since he joined Mumbai Indians. Jayawardene’s biggest achievement ever since he became Mumbai’s coach is not winning the IPL, CSK gifted that to him, but appearing full-time on their Netflix show, where he looked like a cheaper version of Pep Guardiola that you would find in Mumbai’s ‘Fashion Street.’ Talking about tactics, you needed not Lasith Malinga but your Mumbai boy Shardul Thakur to gift them the IPL win, cause he couldn’t even get bat on the ball thanks to his long legs.

Your MVP: Rohit Sharma

Hailed as one of the best in the IPL history, Rohit Sharma *had* the numbers to back the claims. However, in recent times, he has been reduced to outside the top-ten batsmen in the Orange Cap race, with even Quinton de Kock surpassing him on that chart. While some of the best players from last season average around the 40s mark, Rohit averages 28.92, a number that he should ideally not be proud of but will anyway, cause team comes first? This team looks on the timeline of wasting Rohit’s next few years or is it Rohit who is doing it to the team?

To be honest, even if I blame Jayawardene for the 2018 season for demoting him in the batting unit, I can’t blame the Sri Lankan for the 2019 season. Rohit was batting like a man walking on a beach. At least that man would be careful of the waves not hitting him but Rohit just doesn’t care.

What’s new that sucks

This is a franchise which banked on Saurabh Tiwary, a name ancient than even some of the dinosaurs around the world. If you think getting Tiwary for 50 lakhs was a deal, it should have been the other Tiwary - Manoj, who should have been ideally bought. Along the same lines, Nathan Coulter-Nile? I have no idea whatsoever how to make head and tail of this signing. If you think Arsenal were bad when they signed an almost finished David Luiz, Mumbai were in the same realm when they purchased Nathan Coulter-Nile.

He’s been around the league since 2013, yes that time when Bumrah was still getting there with literally baby steps. His last full season came in 2017 after which he became really, really irrelevant, so much so even Australia have not picked him in the shortest format. However, Mumbai’s trust meant that they fought with CSK (why CSK?) in the Auction to purchase the all-rounder. Now, if you think he’s a sure-shot starter, well, look at the list of players. They have Trent Boult and Mitchell McClenaghan, why would they need another bowler?

Hopefully, they aren’t thinking either of making Lynn bat at no.3, cause that’s a recipe made for hell.

What always sucked

Think again, this the franchise who trusted freaking YUVRAJ SINGH, eight years after his World Cup performance. Well for a fact we know that Yuvraj is still around the corner, so Mumbai, in case a player gets injured, you know who your Truecaller history will suggest, or it might not, given that JIO internet sucks at times. Let’s not even get to their Netflix series, which was cringe-worthy at most.

Barring Jasprit Bumrah with the ball, the other bowlers look like a pack of sore losers, who are just hoping something would tie up at one end or the other. From the batting front, how bad must a team be for Kieron Pollard to come and resurrect them? If you think of it, Mumbai doesn’t have a fan-base of their own, cause remember who brought them here? Yes, Sachin Tendulkar. It required a finished cricketer in the shortest format to bring fans to Mumbai so-called Indians and also you needed a Test player to be your icon player, sad times!

It didn’t stop there, you guys also roped in Hrithik Roshan, who surely would go “My powers are being misused here, mom,” when he looks back. For the other loyal fans, they are still on their way to the stadium stuck in Bandra, cause Dombivli is too low for their standards; cause Antilia? Also about the fan-base, I feel so sorry for you, bringing out all the toxicity on the internet when CSK and RR were banned. I know you needed someone to look at you and love you but again not everyone gets loved, rightly so, you guys don’t!

In 2018, you won the Fair play award for what exactly? Playing fair or fairly playing, cause you couldn’t even damn qualify for the playoffs.

What might not suck

Being a CSK fan, there is only one segment where I think Mumbai won’t suck, that is influencing the umpires to get the results. No in all fair play, Mumbai’s talent and scouting division are really one of the best in the leagues, if not the best. They unearthed Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Rahul Chahar and also gave a new-life to Kieron Pollard. If you think that is enough, look at the new comers that have arrived - Digvijay Deshmukh, Prince Balwant Rai and Mohsin Khan. They might be your kids next door at the moment but when they all become a genius of a player, you would be looking back and thinking why I in the first place should have been an astrologer. But that’s for another segment, see you then! Just in case if you needed the entire article, in short, Mumbai Indians suck!