Mumbai Indians’ batting woes were characterised by Rohit Sharma’s flop show

In the end, Mumbai Indians got close. A horror start to their campaign – they lost three of their first four matches – meant that they were under the gun from the very start, but they found a way to win when most thought they were down.

The Rohit Sharma-led team are the tournament’s most successful team (Champions in 2013, 2015, 2017) and in recent years, they have made recovering from bad starts a habit.

In 2014, they won 7 of their last 9 matches.
In 2015, they won 6 of their last 7 matches.
In 2016, they won 5 of their last 8 matches.
In 2017, they won 4 of their last 6 matches.
In 2018, they won 4 of their last 6 matches.

So their supporters never lost hope and the opponents remained wary, but Mumbai were undone by a batting line-up that despite being deep, never found a rhythm that would intimidate opponents.

Prime among those failures would be skipper Rohit Sharma. Supremely successful as opener of the India team, the team management decided that their captain was a better fit in the middle order.

The move might have seemed theoretically sound and it even paid off a couple of times, but in the end, the numbers just don’t add up.

For the first time, Rohit Sharma failed to score 300 runs in a season. His tally of 286 runs was the 23rd best in the top run-getters table and almost a 400 runs less than Rishabh Pant’s final tally of 684 runs.

In the final match of the league stage, Rohit was in a prime position to secure his side’s place in the playoffs.

At the end of the 13th over, MI needed 59 runs from 42 balls. By most yardsticks, this was doable. A difference of just 17 between run required and balls left.

Rohit and Hardik Pandya were in the middle and the latter was already striking it well – he had 27 runs off 13 balls at this stage. Essentially, someone needed to stay with him in the middle. Given how experienced he is, Rohit needed to have recognised the need of the hour and done exactly that.

Instead, he went for a big shot and was caught brillianty on the boundary line by the Maxwell-Boult relay team.

Rohit had jammed his shoulder when he fell awkwardly while fielding but given that he was there in the middle, he needed to be more aware; more match aware. A Mahendra Singh Dhoni would have looked to take the game to the last over; he would have looked to pile on the pressure on the bowlers and see them crack.

Rohit, on the other hand, played a shot that defied explanation. It was a shot that spoke volumes of the frustration he seems to be experiencing after a poor season. He was desperately searching for form and in that he perhaps took one risk too many.

Experts had been calling for Rohit to open the batting from the first match of a season. The MI team management had resisted that call and explained that they wanted more stability in the middle order.

But at what cost?

In the 2017 season, Rohit made 333 runs at 23.78 in 17 matches. In 2018, his tally has been 286 run at 23.83 in 14 matches. Clearly, the opening argument should be settled. It might be good for the team but clearly doesn’t work for the batsman himself.

The other big miss for MI was Pollard. Last season, he weighed in with 385 runs. This season, his tally was a mere 133 runs in 9 matches. He seemed to be finding his form late in the season but by then, the ship had left the docks.

Suryakumar Yadav enjoyed himself in the opening slot, scoring 512 runs and forged a good opening partnership with Evin Lewis, but perhaps it just wasn’t destructive enough. Surya’s highest score in this edition was 72 and Lewis’ was 65. At no point did they look like they would take it deep.

The Pandya brothers were solid and Cutting found some solid form with the bat late in the season, but MI’s match-winners went missing at the most inopportune times.

Perhaps, in hindsight, Rohit might have done it differently and now, they’ll have a whole year to think about this. For only the second time in the last 9 seasons, the Mumbai Indians failed to qualify for the playoffs. Given that they were so close, it will be a bitter pill to swallow for the team and their skipper.