Bumrah’s return, Suryakumar’s reliability, and the fresh spark from new recruits changed their fortunes
Vishal Dikshit29-May-20254:25
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After only one win in their first five games, Mumbai Indians (MI) were close to the bottom of the points table in IPL 2025. Around the halfway mark of the league stage, MI turned a corner and made it to the playoffs with a six-match winning streak along the way. They will now face Gujarat Titans (GT) in the Eliminator on May 30. Before that, here’s a look at the performers who helped MI, last season’s wooden-spoon holders, bounce back.The boom with BumrahJasprit Bumrah’s absence for the first four games this season hit MI hard. They were forced to throw new-ball specialist Deepak Chahar and the inexperienced Satyanarayana Raju in the death overs, and they stumbled to one loss after another with an economy rate of 11.04 between overs 17-20 in their first four fixtures.Related
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Enter Bumrah to turn MI’s fortunes around. Chahar and Boult could now focus on the powerplay, Hardik on the middle overs (7 to 16), and Bumrah led the attack with his pin-point accuracy, frugal economy and death-overs speciality.Bumrah’s presence also took bowling workload off Hardik, who sent down 10 overs in his three games before Bumrah joined, and then only another 20 in the 10 matches since. Trent Boult, the second-most experienced bowler in the line-up, and he and Bumrah pulled down the death-overs economy rate from over 11 to just 9.48, the second-best in that phase among all teams since Bumrah joined.The Jasprit Bumrah effect for MI•ESPNcricinfo LtdBoult’s plan was clear in the death: nail the yorker, the weapon he has used most often in that phase, to pick up wickets and stem the flow of runs. His 19 yorkers in the death during the league stage were not only the second-most (behind Avesh Khan’s 21), they fetched him the most number of wickets, with the second-best economy rate of a mere 2.75 (behind Josh Hazlewood’s 3.00).Bumrah, meanwhile, bowled like he was never injured, waltzing his way to the top of the charts for both overall economy rate (6.33) and bowling average (14.64) with the 17 wickets in just 39.2 overs.Trent Boult’s yorkers at the death in IPL 2025•ESPNcricinfo LtdWith Chahar and Boult taking care of the new ball – MI were the only team that didn’t change their opening pair this IPL – and the death overs in the hands of seasoned pros, MI’s bowling attack worked like a well-oiled machine, bringing their overall economy rate also down from 8.87 in the first four matches to 8.40 in the next 10 – the best in those matches. Credit to MI’s plans, their average in the middle overs without Bumrah was always the best, and it continued that way even after he arrived.The three new recruitsThat MI were looking to bank on their experience and core was clear from their retentions. After the mega auction, their head coach Mahela Jayawardene said the reason for bringing in Boult (who played for them in 2020 and 2021), Chahar, Mitchell Santner</a and Karn Sharma, was because they wanted players who had the taste of winning an IPL before.However, there are three players who have played nearly all league games and are, at best, in their second IPL season. MI invested in opener and wicketkeeper Ryan Rickelton, England allrounder Will Jacks, and used the RTM option for Naman Dhir.Naman Dhir and Suryakumar Yadav company played crucial innings through the league stage•MB Media/Getty ImagesRickelton, who was bought at the auction for his base price of INR 1 crore, has been MI's second-highest scorer so far after Suryakumar Yadav. MI needed a wicketkeeper after letting go of Ishan Kishan and they showed their preference for a left-hand opening partner for Rohit Sharma. They did that by picking Rickelton, whom they had seen closely with MI Cape Town in SA20 for two seasons already – he was the top-scorer in the 2024 edition and then fourth on the runs charts in their title-winning run in 2025.When Rohit was struggling for runs early on, Rickelton, meanwhile, scored quickly. By the time Rohit got his first big score, in MI's eighth game, Rickelton had 180 runs at a strike rate of 150, and he has since more than doubled that count to 388, sharing the team's lowest balls-per-boundary ratio (4) with a few others. His form gave Rohit the comfort of time to regain his rhythm and often set the platform for the remaining batters.One of those batters was Dhir. His stock had risen from INR 20 lakh to INR 5.25 crore this year because of his big shots, especially the towering sixes he hits down the ground. It's no surprise that his strike rate of over 180 is the best for an MI batter this season, despite batting at No. 3, No. 6 and No. 7, excelling in each of those positions.He took down the international trio of Mitchell Starc, Mukesh Kumar and Mohit Sharma in the death overs in Delhi; his 25* off 11 lifted MI to a match-winning 215 against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and his last two knocks saw him strike two fours and four sixes in a combined 20 balls to emerge as a reliable finisher. For a batter at No. 7 or below, Dhir has the second-most runs for an MI batter in a season. Another 19 runs and he will top that list. Apart from his batting, Dhir has also been a handy fielder in the deep, pouching the second-most catches.Will Jacks's bowling has been equally useful as his batting•AFP/Getty ImagesThe third cog in the trio is Jacks, who has played 13 of their 14 matches, but has headed home like Rickelton. With centuries to his name across the SA20, BPL and IPL in the span of just three months in early 2024, it would have been fair to assume MI selected him for his top-order bashing.But the surprise element – testimony to his six-for on Test debut – came in the form of his offbreaks, used astutely by MI against left-hand batters. Jacks often bowled soon after the powerplay, and has bowled two-thirds of his deliveries to them so far. The match-up peaked against LSG when he took out Nicholas Pooran and Rishabh Pant, both caught in his first three balls. Earlier in April, he had bagged a similar feat opposite SRH, when he had Kishan stumped for two and Travis Head caught for 28. On both occasions the oppositions were kept to 160-odd and MI won comfortably, with Jacks the Player of the Match.All his six wickets came against left-handers with a far better economy rate (7.50 compared to 10.71 against right-hand batters), but such has been his efficacy that he has the second-best economy rate and the best average for a spinner against them this season.SKY-rocketing his way through the middle oversIf there were any doubts about his T20 form coming into the IPL because of the low scores against England at the start of the year – which included two ducks – Suryakumar put them all to bed by marrying two factors, of which one often comes at the cost of another for top-order batters: consistency and a high strike-rate.Even before MI began to pick up the pieces after the initial defeats, Suryakumar had started churning out the runs in the middle overs. The crescendo of MI registering one win after another along with Suryakumar's form went hand in hand. He first put on steady scores of 25-plus every time and then hit the high notes in the second half of the league stage with match-winning performances during the crunch games, both home and away. If he swept his way to 54 against LSG and peppered the boundaries on flat tracks, Suryakumar also chaperoned the batting on challenging pitches in the last two outings, first at home with an unbeaten 73 against Delhi Capitals (DC), and then with a 57 opposite Punjab Kings (PBKS) in Jaipur.Suryakumar Yadav in middle overs in IPL 2025•ESPNcricinfo LtdHis T20 mastery is not a surprise anymore but the fact that he averages 71.11 this season proves that no bowling attack has found answers for his 360-degree play. His 14 straight 25-plus scores are a world record now, his tally of 640 is the highest for an MI batter in an IPL season. He is also the first non-opening batter in IPL history to have scored over 600 in a season two times (2023 and 2025). If he scores another 48 runs, he will hold the record for the most runs by a non-opener in a season, going past AB de Villiers' record of 687 from 2016.If MI play on more tricky surfaces in the playoffs or face a crisis situation, Suryakumar will hold the key for them, especially in the middle overs where he has scored 75% of his runs and he is, not surprisingly, the leading scorer in that phase by a big margin. He has scored 41.17% of MI's runs in overs 7 to 16, which is also the biggest contribution by a single batter in the middle overs towards his team.A lot has come together for MI in the last couple of months to put the string of losses behind them, boss different phases of the game, and rely on different match-winners to make it to the last four. The next challenge will be to continue this streak even in the absence of those who have left for national duty.