The Mumbai Indians have followed the theory of playing with two overseas seam bowlers for years now. It has worked in a majority of the matches, especially in their fortress, Wankhede Stadium.
However, the same cannot be said of them in the two matches that Mumbai Indians have played on the slower pitches of Visakhapatnam, losing to Sunrisers Hyderabad last Sunday by 85 runs and to Kings XI Punjab by seven wickets on Friday night. Against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Southee went for 0/35 and McClenaghan, 1/38 in their four overs while against KXIP, they went for 1/22 and 2/24, respectively.
The New Zealand pair of Tim Southee and Mitchell McClenaghan have done well this season, picking up 26 wickets between them, with the left-armer even wearing the Purple Cap with 17 sticks as on Friday night.
On the slow surface of Visakhapatnam, where there has been turn, Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma said he may consider changing that pattern with the new ball. That said, seam bowlers have struck on this pitch, Sunrisers Hyderabad’s five-man army of Ashish Nehra, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mustafizur Rahman, Moises Henriques and Barinder Sran doing it against MI while the trio of Sandeep Sharma, Mohit Sharma and Marcus Stoinis did the job for Kings XI Punjab.
Asked if he was exploring the option of keeping one of the two foreign seamers out and playing an additional batsman, say the explosive Martin Guptill, Sharma said on Friday night: “We have to think about it. The reason we play with two foreign seamers is that they have done consistently well throughout the tournament and we did not want to change too much in our bowling department. To be able to restrict a batting line-up of RCB to 151 was incredible. I don’t think anyone in the tournament was able to keep them to under 155. Everything depends on what line-up we are comfortable with. We need to win two out of two. Batting has let us down.”
Sharma had a point in saying that his team’s batting has been disappointing at times. The side has been pathetic while batting first, losing four of the five games this season while five of their seven games chasing have resulted in victories.
Sharma denied that the team was heavily dependent on him to put up runs on the board. “We have got good three or four domestic players, who have scored consistently over the last couple of years in domestic cricket. We have got two foreign batters in Pollard and Buttler. We stuck with Parthiv Patel for a long time, but he was not having a good run with the bat (He was dropped and was replaced by Unmukt Chand against KXIP). We had to make that change. All these did not come good with the bat. Nitish Rana has played only two games and it is too early to talk about him.
“(Ambati) Rayudu has been consistently scoring 30s and 40s. I don’t think it is too much on me. Kieron Pollard and Jos Buttler have finished matches chasing, as they did against Royal Challengers Bangalore. Whoever is playing has to take that responsibility and go out and perform. I don’t think the whole pressure and run scoring is on me. We have won without me scoring as well. The whole batting squad has to believe that whatever happens, they will pull off a win. It is as simple as that.”
Like they did in Mohali, where despite Sharma falling for nought, Mumbai Indians went on to win, the only instance of them winning while batting first this IPL.
