Mumbai Indians, the five-time champion of the Indian premier league (IPL), have been knocked out of this season’s play-offs competition. The team put in a lot of effort but lost many matches thus they failed to reach the playoffs.
Their fate will be decided later today at Sunriser Hotel Hyderabad for beating Lucknow Super Giants by a wide margin of 10 wickets in an IPL match played on Wednesday in Hyderabad.
the fifties Travis Hyde (89* off 30 balls) and Abhishek Sharma (75 off 28 balls) made mincemeat of LSG bowlers to save their opening pair and cross the target within just 9.4 overs achieving 166. Prior to that, Ayush Badoni had scored an unbeaten half-century as LSG ended up with 165 for 4 in a low-scoring game.
So far this season, Mumbai Indians have endured a tough time suffering eight loses from twelve games. Even if they win the remaining two games, they can only get to twelve points.
However, SRH’s victory lifted their tally to 14 points making it equal with Delhi Capitals and Lucknow Supergiants who are playing each other on May 14th also on fourteen points.The scenario therefore indicates that Mumbai Indians won’t make it across the threshold required for entering into playoffs.
The ousting of the five-time champions from the play-offs is one major story line for this year’s IPL signaling how things may pan out for rest of tournament as well as scramble top four positions among other teams.
Mumbai Indians’ next stop is Eden Gardens where they will face Kolkata Knight Riders in what promises to be another tough encounter. Thereafter, they will round off their campaign against Lucknow Supergiants on seventeenth May.
However, batting unit has failed to find any kind of rhythm and consistency throughout this tournament despite impressive bowling from Jasprit Bumrah.
Consequently, MI’s leadership has come under a lot of scrutiny with Hardik Pandya facing an uphill task in the remaining matches. To end the season on a positive note, the team will have to regroup and address these issues.
This was Hardik’s first season as captain for Mumbai Indians, however they managed to win only four out of fourteen games in their IPL campaign.
Mumbai Indians have lots of supporters who are very unhappy due to their past achievements in Indian Premier League championships.
The focus now is on rebuilding and strategy for next year as they hope to come back bigger and better.
