By Prakash Nair 
Mumbai, April 29: This Mumbai Indians season has been a mess. Five losses from seven games. Ninth on the table. And the last time they played, Chennai Super Kings beat them by 103 runs, the worst defeat in MI’s entire IPL history. That is not a rough patch. That is a collapse. And tonight, they have to face Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Wankhede Stadium, a team that has won four games in a row and is playing some of the best cricket in this tournament right now.
Someone in the MI camp needs to step up tonight. Because if they lose this one, the season is basically done.
Is Rohit Even Playing Tonight?
This is the question every MI fan has been asking since Monday.
Rohit Sharma pulled his right hamstring on April 12 against RCB. He has not played since. He was spotted at the nets on Monday, which got everyone excited. Then he skipped Tuesday’s practice. Did some stretching. A bit of light running. Nothing screamed, “I am ready to bat.”
The Mumbai Indians management, when asked directly, said his availability will be confirmed only at the toss tonight. That is the kind of answer that means even they are not sure.
Here is the thing about Rohit at the Wankhede. This is his ground. The crowd knows him, loves him, and has watched him play some of his best innings here. Even if he comes in as an Impact Player substitute and not a starter, he can change a game within ten balls. That is not nostalgia talking, that is just the kind of batter he is.
But if he is not fully fit and they rush him back, they could lose him for the rest of the season. It is a genuine dilemma, and there is no clean answer.
What Has Gone Wrong With MI
Pretty much everything, if we are being direct.
Hardik Pandya was supposed to lead from the front. As captain and as a player. So far this season he has scored 97 runs and taken 3 wickets across seven games. That is below-par for someone of his ability and below what MI need from the man wearing the armband.
The bowling is where it really falls apart, though. Jasprit Bumrah has been excellent. No complaints there. But outside of Bumrah, the pace attack has been getting hit around. Trent Boult, one wicket. Deepak Chahar, one wicket. When your new-ball bowlers are picking up one wicket each across the entire season so far, you are going to leak runs and you are going to lose matches.
Suryakumar Yadav has been another big disappointment. Not long ago this man was ranked the best T20 batter in the world. This season he has been quiet, tentative at times, and nowhere near his best. When SKY does not fire, there is a huge hole in MI’s batting order that nobody else has filled consistently.
The two bright spots have been Quinton de Kock and Tilak Varma, both of whom hit centuries this season. Good performances. But two hundreds from two players cannot carry an entire squad.
SRH Are Flying Right Now
Four wins on the trot. Third on the points table. And a batting lineup that has made some very good bowling attacks look ordinary this season.
Abhishek Sharma is genuinely in the form of his life. 380 runs this season. Strike rate of 212. He is hitting the ball so clean and so hard right now that even good deliveries are going for boundaries. He recently smashed 135 not out in a single game. Against MI’s leaky bowling attack Bumrah aside he could do serious damage in the powerplay itself.
Then there is Ishan Kishan, who played for Mumbai Indians for seven seasons before moving to SRH. He knows the Wankhede better than almost anyone. He knows the dimensions, the pitch, the outfield. Tonight he comes back to a ground that shaped his career and he is in brilliant form. 312 runs this season at a strike rate touching 199. His last game he made 74 off 29 balls. The man is in no mood to be sentimental.
Heinrich Klaasen has been equally brutal. 349 runs and counting. Travis Head has been slightly below his usual standard this season with 186 runs but that just means he is due a big one. Their captain Pat Cummins, has steadied the bowling and the team has found its rhythm with some newer names like Eshan Malinga and Sakib Hussain chipping in with wickets.
SRH as a team right now look balanced, confident, and dangerous. Everything MI are not at this moment.
The Ground Itself Will Play a Role
The Wankhede is not a bowler’s paradise. Short boundaries, fast outfield, and a pitch that is generally good to bat on this ground produces big scores almost every time. The last match played here saw over 460 runs across both innings. In the last five games at this venue, pace bowlers have taken 29 wickets compared to 22 for spinners, which tells you something about how the surface behaves.
One more thing that will matter hugely tonight the dew. April evenings in Mumbai mean dew settles on the ground by around the ninth or tenth over of the second innings. When dew comes in, batting gets easier and bowling gets harder, especially for spinners who rely on grip and turn. The ball becomes slippery. Captains know this. Whoever wins the toss tonight will almost certainly choose to bowl first.
Now here is an interesting bit of history. For all of SRH’s firepower and current form, they have a terrible record at this ground. Two wins from 14 games at the Wankhede. A win percentage of just 14.3, which is reportedly the lowest for any team at any IPL ground where they have played ten or more matches. The Wankhede has always found a way to make SRH uncomfortable.
Whether that old pattern holds against a side this confident is anyone’s guess.
The Battles That Will Decide It
Watch Bumrah vs Abhishek Sharma in those first six overs. That is the contest within the contest. If Bumrah can disrupt Abhishek’s timing early, get him playing and missing, or nick him off, MI have a real chance of keeping SRH to something manageable. If Abhishek survives the powerplay and gets his eye in, the total could go somewhere that MI’s batting simply cannot chase.
AM Ghazanfar is another one to watch. The 20-year-old Afghan spinner has been MI’s best bowler this season, actually 8 wickets from 5 games, economy of 8.61. He bowls with good control in the middle overs and is effective against both left and right-handers. The challenge is that Kishan and Klaasen have not been dismissed by a single spinner all season. Not once. So Ghazanfar walks into that contest knowing the numbers are stacked against him.
On the selection front, MI are reportedly deciding between Will Jacks and their new recruit Keshav Maharaj who joined the squad to replace the injured Mitchell Santner. That call will affect the balance of their bowling.
For MI with the bat, it all comes down to whether Suryakumar Yadav can finally produce what everyone knows he is capable of. And of course, what happens with Rohit at the toss.
Numbers Do Not Lie, But They Do Not Tell the Whole Story Either
In 25 IPL meetings between these two sides, MI have won 15, and SRH have won 10. Recent history also tilts heavily towards MI. They have beaten SRH four times in a row across the last two seasons.
But that was a different MI. A more settled, more confident, more complete MI than the one that takes the field tonight.
Right now, momentum belongs to SRH. Form belongs to SRH. And for the first time in a long while, heading into a Wankhede match against these opponents, the favourites tag also belongs to SRH.
One Game, One Shot
MI are not mathematically eliminated. There are games left. The window is still technically open.
But lose tonight and it slams shut.
This is the match where the squad either shows it has something left, some pride, some fight, some of that old Mumbai Indians belief that they have made a living off for years or quietly fades out of another IPL season earlier than anyone expected.
Suryakumar needs a big innings. Bumrah needs early wickets. Hardik needs to lead with bat and ball, not just words. And the 80,000 people who are going to pack into the Wankhede tonight? They are going to be loud, they are going to be hopeful, and they are going to will their team across the line if there is anything to cheer for.
SRH will not care about the noise. They rarely do.
Toss at 7:00 PM IST. First ball at 7:30 PM IST.
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- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
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