Traditional slow starters, Mumbai Indians (MI) have lived up to their reputation after losing their first two games of this season’s Indian Premier League (IPL). In fact, their last opening-day win dates all the way back to 2012 —a dreadful record to maintain. To make matters worse, captain Hardik Pandya was fined ₹12 lakh for maintaining a slow over-rate against Gujarat Titans (GT), having already served a suspension in the first match due to the same offence in IPL 2024.
Now, they have already started their season on the wrong foot, and with their ace bowler Jasprit Bumrahout due to injury for at least half of the IPL 2025 season, they have their task cut out for them once again.
Additionally, their top order continues to misfire. In the first two games against Chennai Super Kings (CSK)and GT, their openers have collectively scored just 25 runs, while the team finished with totals of 155 for 9 and 160 for 6. In fact, Rohit Sharma, their opening mainstay, has been dismissed 19 times within the first 10 balls since 2022. During those 10–ball phases, he has a strike–rate of 120.
With the openers failing to deliver a good start, the pressure of carrying the team has shifted onto the middle-order batters, including Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav, Robin Minz, and Pandya himself.
SKY hasn’t been in the best form lately, though he did show glimpses of his best when he fired 48 off 28 balls against GT. Tilak, too, succumbed under pressure in the last game, scoring 39 off 36 balls. The ‘Chris Gayle of Ranchi’, Jharkhand’s young keeper-batter Robin Minz, has also looked out of depth, scoring just 6 runs in two games.
Their spinners also look out of sorts. Against GT, MI’s two spinners—Mitchell Santner and Mujeeb Ur Rahman—went for 53 runs in five overs while taking just one wicket between them. The notable exceptionwas Vignesh Puthur, who didn’t play against GT but made an exceptional debut against CSK.
Furthermore, it seems that the notion of starting slow is so ingrained in the unit’s mindset that, at this point, they are almost accustomed to having no points after the first couple of fixtures. That might be the reason they haven’t won the title in five years now.
“Except for one year, Mumbai has always been in this scenario (starting slow),” Tilak had said last season. “At the start, we don’t start that great, but Mumbai always catches up in the middle and end of the tournament. So, we always believe in our strategy, plans, practices, and everything else. Hopefully, we will also do that this year, and we are trying to do that.”
This is where Pandya as captain might have to step in. He endured a torrid season with the franchise last time around, getting booed across venues in India and finishing dead last in his first season as captain. But on an individual level, he turned things around remarkably for himself. He was a crucial part of the T20 World Cup and Champions Trophy-winning squads. Additionally, he contributed significantly with both bat and ball during Baroda’s semi-final run in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2024-25.
That mentality might just be the need of the hour for Mumbai, as against GT, the team was not only poor with the bat but also quite sloppy in the field. Pandya, in fact, expressed concern in the post-match press conference about his team committing “basic errors”.
“There should not be concern [about the batting], but at the moment, I think it is time,” he said. “I mean, we all need to take responsibility, and it’s still early stage. But at the same time, I think batters have to come to the party. And hopefully, they will come soon.”
MI next play against KKR at home, where the conditions, unlike the first two games, will be much more familiar and suited to their strengths. And regardless of the initial hiccups, they have a habit of scraping through to the playoffs, as they did in 2023. Pandya will hope that a return to home conditions helps the team rally back to winning ways. Otherwise, it could soon turn into a repeat of last season. Or, in the worst-case scenario, a repeat of 2022, where they lost eight games on the trot before winning their first.