Review on Mumbais failure to make Semis
Mumbai Indians defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore in a thrilling last ball finish at Durban on 19thSeptember 2010 to end their league campaign with back to back victories which was preceded by back to back defeats in earlier matches. While Mumbai Indians were knocked out of the tourmanet thanks to their earlier defeats they can still hold their heads high because they finished the tournament as the best batting side.
Mumbai Indians aggregated 706 runs in 4 matches at an average of 177 runs per innings. Mumbai Indians to their credit averaged the same irrespective of the fact whether they batted first or chased. Mumbai Indians ended Champions League without being bowled out even once in the tournament. It may be noted that Mumbai Indians had the distinction of finishing the third edition of Indian Premier League without being all out even once in the tournament. Sachin Tendulkar though unlucky with the final results had the consolation of winning tosses in all the matches. If one were to conduct a review for Mumbai Indians failing to make the semi final here are a couple of them.
Bowlers are poor fielders too:- Mumbai has got the bowling options wrong. It is not that Mumbai Indians have plenty of options because apart from Lasith Maligh and Harbhajan Singh to some extent they do not have any options. When it comes to picking bowlers Sachin and team management should have opted to go for a bowler who is a better fielder and there they have messed by picking Zaheer Khan. Pollard and Bravo have leaked runs in plenty especially the latter but where the duo shine is the fact that they are excellent fielders and save runs for the team. On the contrary a bowler like Zaheer far from being a fielder who saves runs leaks out runs while fielding. If for example Bravo and Zaheer go for 45 runs in their four overs, Bravo saves around 5 runs in the filed while Zaheer concedes 5 and therefore the net value would be 40 runs against Bravos name while it would be 50 runs against Zaheers name and that makes a big difference where only 5 to 10 runs separate the winner from the loser. Mumbai Indians could have opted to go with a bowlier like Abhishek Nayyar who is a excellent fielder and even if he is to leak runs while bowling he is bound to compensate it on the field with his brilliant fielding and it must also be noted that Abhishek Nayyar is a talented batsman as well who can be used as a floater in the batting and can clear the boundaries at will.
Too few League Matches:- While Mumbai Indians has let themselves down on the field they have reasons to let down by the format as well. Had they been playing in IPL they would have eased to semi finals because a couple of losses in the first two matches is not going to worry any team in IPL leave along a strong outfit like Mumbai Indians. Champions League too could have followed the format of IPL and while it would be too demanding to accommodate a team playing the other twice in the league it would hot have been taxing to make each team play the other team once. That would have also made the matches more interesting.
The idea to make Champions League a big event by accommodating more teams seems to have backfired because there teams namely Wayamba, Central Districts and Guyana lost all the three matches they played and not it is clear that these teams were fitted only to make the numbers. The organizers would have been well advised to have made the Champions League a 7 team event by having excluded these 3 teams and fitted all the teams in a round robin league format in which the top four qualify for the semi finals.
While Mumbai indians the finalists in the third edition of Indian Premier League are out of the tournament, the other teams Royal Challengers and Chennai Super Kings are a in a must win situation in their final league matches and this is something Sachin Tendulkar, M S Dhoni and Anil Kumble would not have imagined prior to the tournament.
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