Defending Champions, Winners of the Champions League, perpetually in everyone’s books to go all the way in the tournament, and without their talisman, Sachin Tendulkar. Although the Master Blaster will be Mentoring the team.
Strengths :
With the likes of Lasith Malinga, Harbhajan Singh etc, the defending champions have always boasted of a strong bowling line-up. Add to these two, proven performers like Zaheer Khan, Pragyan Ojha, Krishmar Santokie among others and the side has a department that can win games on their own. This apart, they have the likes of Corey Anderson,the man who recently hit tge fastest ODI century in 36 balls beating a long time record set by Afridi, and Kieron Pollard to fall back on and get them a few overs in between, leaving captain Rohit Sharma spoilt for choice should a front liner be out injured or have a bad day. Their batting department too boasts of some huge players, with their captain leading the charges. The presence of the extremely experienced and extremely presence of the extremely experienced and extremely presence of the extremely experienced and extremely sure to calm some nerves in the dressing room, while Pollard and Corey Anderson will provide the necessary fireworks for the defending champions when they need it.
Weakness:
Even with the presence of some massive hitters in the line-up, Mumbai’s batting looks uncharacteristically fragile. The onus lies heavily on Michael Hussey to provide them with a solid start, and if he fails Rohit Sharma’s innings gains a lot more significance. The middle-order doesn’t really have a batsman capable of grafting through and holding one end up to let the big-hitters take cente stage and this could prove to be decisive in the long run.
Opportunities:
The Chennai are the only side to have succesfully
defended the T20-League trophy. Now, with Mumbai
boasting of a side that can at least compete with the
likes of Bangalore and CSK among others, they see
themselves with the odeal opportunity to do what MS
Dhoni and his lads did in 2011.
Threats:
Except for the Chennai, all other teams that have gone
on to win the League have suffered a massive dip in
form the next year. Whether that was because of the
struggle to deal with the rise in expectations of pure
coincidence, it’s impossible to say – but Mumbai will
surely not want to go that route.
Best Performance : Champions 2013
Wort Performance : Finishing 7th out of the 8 in 2009.
SQUAD:
Rohit Sharma(c),
Michael Hussey,
Chidhambaram Gautam,
Ambati Rayudu,
Aditya Tare,
Corey Anderson,
Harbhajan Singh,
Kieron Pollard,
Marchant de Lange,
Pawan Suyal,
Ben Dunk,
Krishmar
Santokie,
Josh Hazlewood,
Lasith Malinga,
Zaheer
Khan,
Pragyan Ojha,
Sushant Marathe,
Jasprit Bumrah,
Shreyas Gopal,
Jalaj Saxena,
Apoorv Wankhade.
