IPL 2021: Mumbai Indians - Team profile and full squad

Mumbai Indians enter the 14th edition of IPL looking to do what has never been achieved in the history of the tournament. Rohit Sharma and his men will be looking to make it a hat-trick of titles after winning the tournament in the last two seasons. The level of the team's dominance can be gauged from the fact that they have won five of the last eight titles.

Here is the full squad of Mumbai Indians for IPL 2021: Rohit Sharma, Quinton de Kock (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan (WK), Chris Lynn, Anmolpreet Singh, Saurabh Tiwary, Aditya Tare, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Anukul Roy, Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult, Rahul Chahar, Jayant Yadav, Dhawal Kulkarni, Mohsin Khan, Nathan Coulter Nile, Adam Milne, Piyush Chawla, James Neesham, Yudhvir Charak, Marco Jansen, Arjun Tendulkar

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Strengths

Core Group of players

Mumbai Indians have retained their entire playing XI from the last season leaving out space for just one more player. Moreover, they have players like Rohit Sharma, Kieron Pollard, Jasprit Bumrah, Krunal Pandya and Hardik Pandya in their starting line-up who have been with the side for 5 or more years. Their strong core of Indian players also makes them one of the most consistent sides in the IPL.

Match-winners

MI have no less than 6 match winners in their playing XI. Rohit Sharma and Quinton de Kock are one of the most explosive opening pairs in the IPL currently and can outplay the opposition before the match even reaches mid-way.

Suryakumar Yadav has proven his worth time and again to adapt and deliver match-winning knocks. Jasprit Bumrah is the 3rd bowler to scalp 100 wickets for MI which undoubtedly makes him a match winner. The lower middle order partnership of Pollard and Pandya is not only explosive but scarily consistent which makes it impossible to write MI out of any contest.

Weakness

Indian Backup for Jasprit Bumrah

Jasprit Bumrah has led the Mumbai Indians attack taking over from his mentor Lasith Malinga. If he were to get injured by any chance then the backup Indian bowlers are Dhawal Kulkarni, Mohsin Khan and Arjun Tendulkar. With the depth that MI have they can easily rotate to accommodate an extra overseas all-rounder but the likes of Neesham and untested Marco Jensen make it a huge risk.

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Lack of a quality finger spinner

Rahul Chahar has done well for them in the past seasons and they also added the experienced Piyush Chawla to the squad but the team lacks depth in this department and this could be their achilles heel while playing in India.

Krunal Pandya has done well in patches and your other options are Anukul Roy and Jayant Yadav who have little to no experience of playing in the IPL.

With MI playing 5 matches at Chennai, lack of a quality finger spinner might come back to haunt them.

Opportunity

History Beckons

MI became only the second side to win the IPL title in consecutive years when they won the tournament in UAE last year. They also broke their jinx of not winning a trophy in an even year. If MI manage to win the title this season, they will be the first franchise to win the IPL title in 3 consecutive seasons.

Threats

A Weak bench

The players sitting on the bench for MI haven’t been exposed to the IPL which makes it absolutely necessary for the starting XI to be in top condition of the whole of IPL. Players like Dhawal Kulkarni, James Neesham and Adam Milne are far from your options when you consider them to replace players like Bumrah, Pollard and Pandya.

No Home Advantage

No team has thrived on home advantage like MI at Wankhede winning 61.2% of their matches at Wankhede. Although their record at Chennai isn’t that bad but it will be a huge task to make Chennai the fortress that was Wankhede.