IPL: Numbers Spoiled MI's Title Defense

Almost all the captains in the seventh edition of the Indian Premier League have had some moments of joy, but one skipper who has seldom been found without any jest is Mumbai Indians' Rohit Sharma. Not many expected MI to be one of the first teams to be written off after such a successful campaign last season, when they clinched their maiden title as well as the Champions League T20.

More than Rohit's smile gone missing, the look on his face is more gloomy than reassuring, more burdensome than inspirational. After all, he had to bear the burden of MI being defending champions despite the fact that their icon player Sachin Tendulkar was gone and a couple key components not around.

After seven losses in ten games, Mumbai's chances of making the play-offs are next to impossible barring some earth-shattering mathematical calculations. The manner in which they were found wanting in a six-wicket loss to Kolkata Knight Riders on Wednesday night just went on to show that their near-perfect win over Sunrisers Hyderabad was just one hit game amid many listless performances.

There are many factors that did not work for MI during a so far painful campaign for them. Here we pinpoint the major ones.

It all started at the auction table

One of the biggest setbacks for the defending champions was to see the players they let go off from their 2013 squad do exceedingly well this year for other franchises. The biggest examples being Dwayne Smith, Glenn Maxwell and Mitchell Johnson, who contributed strongly whenever being called upon to do so last year. Especially Smith, who had made it a habit of forging solid opening stands with Tendulkar, invariably creating momentum for strokeplayers like Rohit, Dinesh Karthik and Kieron Pollard to tee off at any given point of time.

That opening slot turned out to be a massive weak link for the team this year as new recruit and veteran Michael Hussey (30 runs from four games) and Ben Dunk (40 runs from three games) failed miserably with the bat. They alternated the one opening slot with Aditya Tare (106 runs from 10 games) and CM Gautam (121 runs from nine games) but neither could live up to the billing. Plus, playing at least three uncapped Indian players in all matches turned out be a big problem for MI as the options did not enthuse confidence. The reason being the retention of five players for the 2014 auction and the heavy spending on Hussey, Corey Anderson left MI with less purse to buy quality domestic players.

Non-performing overseas players

After being touted as the next big thing in world cricket, fastest ODI centurion Anderson was the cynosure of all eyes when IPL 7 began. However, 150 runs and four wickets in 10 isn't what you'd want to get from a player who was paid Rs 4.5 crore. Perhaps the big occasion, near alien conditions and huge crowds overawed Anderson but what about Hussey? The former Chennai Super Kings veteran was a real force in the two-time champion side and was expected to do much the same for his new franchise, but his poor returns put MI under tremendous pressure and invariably exposed the frailties of a susceptible middle order.

Big runs go missing

After the loss to KKR, Rohit said: "We need to keep scoring 170-plus if we need to win consistently, we aren't doing that." His reasoning is valid. MI have crossed 170 twice so far and ended up winning those games. Their highest run-getter in the tournament, Ambati Rayudu (310 runs in 10 games) is languishing at ninth in the top run-getters. Rohit, Pollard, Rayudu and Lendl Simmons (a late recruit) have combined for seven fifties that includes one score above 70 and two over 60.

After Malinga, who?

The champion bowler that he is in this format, Malinga didn't disappoint with 16 wickets in 10 games. However, he lacked support from the other end. The only instance in the tournament so far when a MI bowler took three or more wickets is Malinga's 4/23 in the season opener. Harbhajan Singh's drought of wickets has not helped apply pressure in the middle overs. In comparison to 24 wickets last season, Harbhajan's eight this year leaves a big vacuum.

Harbhajan, Johnson, Malinga and Pragyan Ojha took 84 wickets last season. In 2014, injury to Zaheer Khan has forced MI to try Jasprit Bumrah (two wickets), Praveen Kumar (two wickets) and Pawan Suyal (one wicket) as his replacement. Ojha (economy 8.29) and Pollard (10.73) have been the biggest disappointments with one wicket apiece.

A combination of the above factors has left Rohit with more than just a creased forehead. Last year, the responsibility brought the best out of him but now the burden of leading an under-performing group is looking too heavy a yoke to bear.