Slow starters Mumbai Indians in danger of falling behind quickly

Five-time champions have lost both their matches with issues in batting and bowling departments

Rohit Sharma, left, and Hardik Pandya need to pull Mumbai Indians out of trouble. Getty Images

Just like the star actors that call their city home, Mumbai Indians have a habit of arriving fashionably late to the IPL party.

But what was seen as a harmless trait has become a serious problem. The five-time champions finished dead last in two of the last three seasons and have now lost the opening two games of this season.

Under Rohit Sharma's captaincy, Mumbai used to stumble their way around the opening weeks before sharpening their focus towards the end of the tournament.

But over the past few years, the story has changed. The clunky engine is just refusing to kick into life, especially since the star names that formed the backbone of the franchise have gone in and out of the squad.

All-rounder Hardik Pandya was away for two seasons at Gujarat Titans, middle order heavyweight Kieron Pollard is now a coach and Rohit's batting in IPL has fallen drastically.

Mumbai's one trump card – Jasprit Bumrah – is injured this season, which has reduced their bowling to one of the weakest in the league, leaving current captain Pandya to do a lot of the heavy lifting.

Moreover, unlike previous seasons, there are no 'weak' teams anymore. Sides like Bengaluru and Punjab, who were trolled for their poor planning and imbalanced squads, have got their act together. This year, both sides have done their homework and picked teams that are neither light in batting nor bowling. Plus, their new captains are also leading from the front.

That is another issue facing Mumbai, which in a way is a result of their spectacular success. Not only are Mumbai five-time champions, they have the current India ODI and T20 captains in their side – Rohit and Suryakumar Yadav – while Bumrah has led the national team in Tests.

The sudden change of leadership in Mumbai last season was not well received by fans or team members, with discontent within the squad becoming evident.

This time, the emotions might have mellowed down as all the local star players returned as ICC champions – at the T20 World Cup and/or the Champions Trophy. But it turned out that the underlying issues were not resolved.

Mumbai's batting has struggled in the opening two matches, and only uncapped spinner Vignesh Puthur has made any sort of impact so far in bowling.

Mumbai posted below-par scores of 155 and 160 in their defeats to Chennai Super Kings and Gujarat Titans batting first and second.

Captain Pandya said that it is too early to panic, but admitted his batters need to step up to the challenge.

"There should not be a concern about batting but at the moment I think it is time," Pandya said after Gujarat beat them by 36 runs in Ahmedabad on Saturday.

"We all need to take responsibilities and it's still early stage. But at the same time, I think batters have to come to the party. And yeah, hopefully they come soon."

What has made things worse is the loss of form of two of Mumbai's main players. Rohit has been subdued in IPL for some time now, scoring less than 400 runs in four of the past five seasons. Suryakumar, their batting backbone, has suddenly lost his touch entirely at the international and domestic level, although he looked good in the defeat to Gujarat.

Also, their dream bowling partnership of Bumrah and Jofra Archer never materialised owing to successive injuries, leaving the franchise struggling to put together a half-decent bowling attack.

That, coupled with a disjointed dressing room, has resulted in a lack of cohesion in planning and execution.

Still, the season has just started.

Mumbai are thankfully back in their home ground – Wankhede – for Monday's clash against title holders Kolkata Knight Riders.

Mumbai have lost two out of two and if they lose on Monday as well, would be halfway through to the point of no return where qualification for the play-offs becomes extremely difficult.

Being in such a precarious position so early in the tournament is not endearing anymore.