Here are three auction mistakes that could cost Mumbai Indians in IPL 2025.
Mumbai Indians will be looking forward to returning to the triumphant and dominant team they once were in the Indian Premier League (IPL). After a disastrous IPL 2024 campaign for the Hardik Pandya-led side, where they finished in 10th place out of 10 teams, the five-time champions will certainly seek a turnaround in IPL 2025.
Mumbai Indians had retained a major part of their core team, including skipper Hardik Pandya, former captain Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma.
At the IPL 2025 mega auction in Saudi Arabia last year, Mumbai Indians went for a mix of youth and experience. They acquired the likes of Trent Boult, Deepak Chahar, Will Jacks and Allah Ghazanfar, while also going for lesser-known players like KL Shrijith and Ashwani Kumar.
Vignesh Puthur, a 23-year-old wrist spinner from Kerala has also joined Mumbai Indians. MI spent a total of INR 44.80 crore and became the team with the second-highest spendings at the auction, with Chennai Super Kings being the first (INR 54.95 crore). However, there could be a few auction mistakes that the franchise could have committed. We take a look at three of those:
Ishan Kishan had been Mumbai Indians’ regular wicketkeeper for quite a while but he was released by the side amid a poor run of form. Mumbai Indians thus had to look elsewhere for wicketkeeping options. As a result, they got the services of South Africa’s Ryan Rickelton (INR 1 crore) and Robin Minz (INR 65 lakhs).
Ryan Rickelton will definitely be the Indians’ first-choice keeper, but should he get injured or anything, then MI lack an experienced option. Sure, Robin Minz has proven himself domestically for Jharkhand, but h’s even yet to make his IPL debut. Which means he lacks experience of playing big leagues.
It didn’t come as a surprise when Mumbai Indians went for Trent Boult for a whopping INR 12.50 crore. But spending INR 9.25 crore for India speedster Deepak Chahar might have proven to be a bit too much.
This is not to underestimate his IPL credentials, 77 wickets in 81 matches is a great thing, but Chahar is someone who is prone to injuries quite often. Over the last few years, Chahar has sustained injuries including a quadriceps injury and a hip injury. One can only hope that Chahar is able to bowl full tilt in IPL 2025.
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Again, this is not to underestimate someone like Hardik Pandya. Hardik Pandya has time and again proven himself as a finisher for both Mumbai Indians and Team India, but it’s to say that MI don’t have someone like Tim David or Romario Shepherd. Naman Dhir is an option who can slot into the finisher’s role, but having batted in the top-order for a majority of IPL 2024, he could be likely to keep that place.
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