Mumbai Indians and odd numbers have a significant history. Mumbai Indians have won IPL titles 5 times (Odd Number) . The years which they won are also odd on four occasions 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019. The 5th time Mumbai Indians won was in even year 2020 but with a twist as it was a leap year means it could be divided easily by an Odd number 5.
Saying so the Journey of Mumbai Indians could be summed up as a tale of two halves.. First Half – Bottom Holders to Second half- Pheonix Risers to Qualifier 2 only too be beaten by a team led by the Mumbaikar himself.
The Mumbai Indians were set to begin their campaign in the Indian Premier League 2025 (IPL 2025) with an aim to reclaim their past glory. The joint-most successful team in the history of the tournament Mumbai Indians Team hasn’t been at their best in the past four seasons as they’ve qualified just once for the playoffs and finished at the bottom twice.
Hence, MI had a lot to look forward to in the upcoming edition as they aim to write another golden chapter in the rich history of the franchise. Mumbai had a lot of issues to deal with in the previous season as their large fanbase didn’t accept the sudden transfer of leadership from Rohit Sharma to Hardik Pandya.
Mumbai Indians (MI), the most successful franchise in Indian Premier League (IPL) history with five titles, faced a disastrous campaign in 2024, finishing last under the leadership of Hardik Pandya. With a revamped 23-member squad, MI was set to bounce back and chase a record sixth title in 2025. MI’s dominance in the IPL is well-established, however the 2024 season marked a stark departure from their usual excellence.
Mumbai Indians at the auction in IPL 2025
Mumbai Indians (MI), one of the most successful franchises in the IPL, recently unveiled their 2025 retention list, retaining five core players, including captain Hardik Pandya and veteran batsman Rohit Sharma.
Mumbai Indians are ready to start their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 campaign in search of their sixth title. They have the joint-most number of trophies (5) in the history of IPL. (More Cricket News) The 18th season of the IPL is set to kickstart on 22 March with Kolkata Knight Riders taking on Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the opening match at Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
Before the mega auction of IPL 2025, Mumbai Indians retained all their core players like Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav, Rohit Sharma, and Tilak Varma. However, in the mega auction, they waited for 5 hours to purchase their first player. Thereafter, they picked New Zealand’s excellent fast bowler Trent Boult. Along with him, they picked up a few more powerful players.
Star Indian allrounder Hardik Pandya will continue to lead Mumbai Indians in IPL 2025, and the squad features some of the biggest T20 stars including Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, and Tilak Varma, who were retained for Rs 16.30 crore, Rs 16.35 crore, Rs 18 crore, and Rs 8 crore, respectively, ahead of the IPL mega auction last year.
Last year, when Mumbai Indians traded Hardik Pandya from Gujarat Titans, everyone had a lot of criticism regarding that trade. The fans and even some of the players were not too pleased with that decision. This could be the reason behind their poor performance last season. Now, it will be interesting to see how Mumbai Indians do with this set of players for the new season.
The full-time MI captain, Hardik Pandya, will not be part of MI’s first match against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on 23 March due to a ban for one match. Pandya suffered the ban for slow-over rate in the last match of the 17th season and the ban continued in the 18th season.
Rohit Sharma is expected to lead the side in his absence. He will be eligible to lead the team from the second match. Jasprit Bumrah’s injury may keep him out of the action for the first few matches but he is expected to join the team in the second half. Ryan Rickelton and Robin Minz are two left-handed batters who will be key players for MI this season. They have retained Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma.
Trent Boult, Mitchell Santner, Reece Topley, Will Jacks and Bevon Jacobs are overseas players who are expected to excel in this season. Arjun Tendulkar and Raj Angad Bawa are two youngsters in the squad. Later Jonny Bairstow was added to the squad in the extended IPL as Ryan Rickelton was to leave to take part in the World Test Championship Finals.
Mumbai Indians in IPL 2025 – A tale of two halfs Downfall and Resurgence
Mumbai Indians has an unique practice in IPL might be the ritual it seems , they never win their first few matches . It seems like a race where all the teams are running forward and Mumbai Indians are running backwards towards the base line . This pattern was observed in few IPL seasons in which MI won the tiltle so this was an usual ritual for the team.
True to their tradition of slow starts, Mumbai found themselves stumbling early this season with just one win in their first four games. But the side found its form returning after the thrilling final-over win against Delhi Capitals in Delhi, which turned their season on its head.
Nothing changed this year as Mumbai Indians . After only one win in their first five games, Mumbai Indians (MI) were close to the bottom of the points table in IPL 2025. Around the halfway mark of the league stage, MI turned a corner and made it to the with a eight-match winning streak along the way to the Qualifier 2. This turnaround was possible due to two reasons The never say die attitude and the performance of key players from the team when it needed the most which could be described as followed.
Spearheaded by the core of Suryakumar Yadav, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah and captain Hardik Pandya, among others, MI stitched together a six-match winning streak that not only dragged them into the playoffs but also revived belief in a sixth title push. A pulsating Eliminator win over Gujarat Titans had the blue brigade dreaming once again until Iyer shut the door with an unbeaten 87 off just 41 balls in the chase.
The boom effect of Jasprit Bumrah changed MIs fortune
MI were bolstered by the return of their speedster Jasprit Bumrah in the fifth fixture against RCB. Ever since his return, Jasprit Bumrah is again doing what he’s known to do, having bowled economical spells against RCB (0/29), Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) (1/21) and CSK (2/25). Touted as the best bowler in the world, the ace speedster has played a pivotal role in all of Mumbai’s five triumphs. Hence, it’s not a surprise that his comeback has coincided with MI gaining momentum, which is expected to grow further as the season progresses.
Jasprit Bumrah’s absence for the first four games this season hit MI hard. They were forced to throw new-ball specialist Deepak Chahar and the inexperienced Satyanarayana Raju in the death overs, and they stumbled to one loss after another with an economy rate of 11.04 between overs 17-20 in their first four fixtures.
Enter Jasprit Bumrah to turn MI’s fortunes around. Chahar and Boult could now focus on the powerplay, Hardik on the middle overs (7 to 16), and Bumrah led the attack with his pin-point accuracy, frugal economy and death-overs speciality.
Jasprit Bumrah’s presence also took bowling workload off Hardik, who sent down 10 overs in his three games before Jasprit Bumrah joined, and then only another 20 in the 10 matches since. Trent Boult, the second-most experienced bowler in the line-up, and he and Bumrah pulled down the death-overs economy rate from over 11 to just 9.48, the second-best in that phase among all teams since Bumrah joined.
Boult’s plan was clear in the death: nail the yorker, the weapon he has used most often in that phase, to pick up wickets and stem the flow of runs. His 19 yorkers in the death during the league stage were not only the second-most (behind Avesh Khan’s 21), they fetched him the most number of wickets, with the second-best economy rate of a mere 2.75 (behind Josh Hazlewood’s 3.00).
Bumrah, meanwhile, bowled like he was never injured, waltzing his way to the top of the charts for both overall economy rate (6.33) and bowling average (14.64) with the 17 wickets in just 39.2 overs.
Boult’s plan was clear in the death: nail the yorker, the weapon he has used most often in that phase, to pick up wickets and stem the flow of runs. His 19 yorkers in the death during the league stage were not only the second-most (behind Avesh Khan’s 21), they fetched him the most number of wickets, with the second-best economy rate of a mere 2.75 (behind Josh Hazlewood’s 3.00).
Jasprit Bumrah, meanwhile, bowled like he was never injured, waltzing his way to the top of the charts for both overall economy rate (6.33) and bowling average (14.64) with the 17 wickets in just 39.2 overs.
Suryakumar Yadav back to his best Sky rocketing his ways through the batting charts
Suryakumar Yadav is back to his best after a below-par outing in the 2024 season as he’s already played several memorable innings for his team so far. The Mr 360 has only got better with every innings and was seen at his belligerent best against CSK as he slammed an unbeaten 68* off 30 balls. Hence, his form is another positive sign for the Hardik Pandya-led side as Suryakumar Yadav is fully capable of winning matches on his own with the bat.
Even before MI began to pick up the pieces after the initial defeats, Suryakumar Yadav had started churning out the runs in the middle overs. The crescendo of MI registering one win after another along with Suryakumar’s form went hand in hand. He first put on steady scores of 25-plus every time and then hit the high notes in the second half of the league stage with match-winning performances during the crunch games, both home and away.
If he swept his way to 54 against LSG and peppered the boundaries on flat tracks, Suryakuma Yadav also chaperoned the batting on challenging pitches in the last two outings, first at home with an unbeaten 73 against Delhi Capitals (DC), and then with a 57 opposite Punjab Kings (PBKS) in Jaipur.
His T20 mastery is not a surprise anymore but the fact that he averages 71.11 this season proves that no bowling attack has found answers for his 360-degree play. His 16 straight 25-plus scores are a world record now, his tally of 640 is the highest for an MI batter in an IPL season. He is also the first non-opening batter in IPL history to have scored over 600 in a season two times (2023 and 2025).
By the end of IPL Suryakumar Yadav broke Ab De Villiers record of 687 runs from IPL 2016 becoming second highest run scorer after Sai Sudarshan with 717 runs to his name at the strike rate of 167.91 smashing 38 sixes and 69 fours.
Management at its tactical best
The MI team management under Mahela Jayawardene is known for its tactical genius, having scripted several successful seasons for the franchise in IPL history. The think thank once again seems to have got all the pieces of the puzzle together, having understood their opposition’s strengths and are planning their downfall accordingly. Against SRH, Mumbai bowlers were seen bowling outside the arc of the SRH opening duo of Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head, which helped to restrict them to a below-par total.
Mumbai Indians batting coach Kieron Pollard also revealed that they planned to use Bumrah with the new ball against SRH to counter their big hitters but wanted to use Deepak Chahar’s swing vs CSK. Hence, MI management is back to its tactical best and are plotting every opposition’s downfall one by one.
Top order finally giving good starts
The veteran opener Rohit Sharma finally found some form against CSK, playing an unbeaten innings of 76* (46). Rohit looked at his vintage best as he deposited the ball into the stands effortlessly with his lazy elegance and brought up his maiden half-century of the season. His opening partner, Ryan Rickelton, has also got starts in the past few games and looks just one innings away from a big knock.
Hence, with both Rohit and Rickelton finding form, the MI batting order is going to so hard to stop given their exceptional depth. The form continued even with Rickelton going back and Jonny Bairstow joining Impact player Rohit Sharma who single handedly won the Eliminator vs Gujarat Titans with entertaining 83 runs
Captain Hardik Pandya leading from the front
Captain Hardik Pandya is having a season in complete contrast of 2024 as he’s firing with both bat and ball. The all-rounder has scored 104 runs from five innings at a thunderous strike rate of 170 and is also in the race for the purple cap, having 11 wickets to his name. His on-field decisions are also working wonders for the team as skipper Pandya has been seen at his shrewd best.
All in all, the all-rounder seems to be having a Midas touch working for him this season, which again portends positive signs for the franchise. Overall with the blend of experience and foreign players Mumbai Indians resurgenge in the second half of the tournament spring a sense of fear in the oppositions to the point that they were the firm favorites to win the 6th IPL title in yet another odd year which was stopped by the Mumbaikar Shreyas Iyer in Qualifier 2 playing for Punjab Kings.
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