The franchise will look for a greater finish than the IPL 2025.
Time to add some brute power to the Mumbai Indians (MI) middle-order. The five-time Indian Premier League (IPL) winning champions have brought in West Indies all-rounder Sherfane Rutherford into the mix, after trading him from the Gujarat Titans (GT). The Mumbai Indians trade adds some power hitting strength lower down the order, which would solve a few of their issues.
The West Indian has played for three teams in the coveted tournament, but featured in most of the matches last season for the Gujarat Titans. Having said that, some of the franchises are already making bright headlines for their trades, the biggest of which has been executed by the Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals.
He was involved with the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Delhi Capitals (DC) previously, in which he did not get to play a lot of matches throughout the season.
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All IPL trades have something in it for the teams on both the ends. But this trade does solve a lot of problems for the Mumbai Indians in perspective of their plans. Rutherford can be a brilliant fit in the lower-middle order along with someone like a Naman Dhir, adding to the Mumbai Indians power hitting. The IPL 2026 trade window has already provided the fans with a lot of pleasant surprises, with more of them to come in the next days.
Having said that, the Mumbai Indians will have to think about several other factors ahead of the IPL 2026 auction in Abu Dhabi. Ahead of the last season, the franchise retained all of their star players, utilising INR 75 Crore for the same. If they wish to repeat the same thing again, they would leave very little capital for themselves at the auction table.
The five-time IPL champions are not known to release any of their star players, but how they manage to retain them would be extremely crucial to their chances. Suryakumar Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Rohit Sharma and Tilak Varma have all been instrumental to the team’s chances in the tournament, and the franchise would have to fins a way if they want to retain all of the stars.
One way through which MI can play a smart game would be to trade players to try and fill the loopholes that are present, before the auction day. The Shardul Thakur and Sherfane Rutherford trade can be the examples of what the franchise is trying to execute. However, they will have to be watchful about the number of overseas players in their clan.
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