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'Mumbai Indians don't have good bowlers to get wickets': Azharuddin slams MI for not addressing 'basic problem'
MI have slumped to the bottom of the points table with five straight losses in IPL 2022. This is only the second time MI have lost all their first five games in a season.
Former India captain Mohammad Azharuddin has slammed Mumbai Indians for not addressing the “basic problem” which has resulted in the five-time winners of the Indian Premier League (IPL) title to slump to the bottom of the points table with five straight losses in IPL 2022. This is only the second time MI have lost all their first five games in a season.
Speaking to Crictraker after Mumbai's 12-run defeat to Punjab Kings earlier this week, the India legend opined that the team has been over reliant in Suryakumar Yadav, who has already scored 163 runs in three innings at a strike rate of 158.3 with two fifties. Azharuddin wants the team to rally around their most consistent batter.
“You can't rely on one player because cricket has always been a team game and it's not an individual sport and out of the 11 players at least 8-9 players have to play well then only you can win a match. But if only 2-3 players are performing then it becomes very difficult and you can't put pressure only on the senior players and I know they are supposed to take all the pressure but at times it gets onto them as well,” he said.
“If you see, they have only six batters, so when Unadkat was coming at No.7 (against PBKS), the opposition knew that nobody else was behind them and then may be the shouldn't have got those run outs. Suryakumar Yadav really batted well but you can't blame him because at the end if the day when you have a good batsman playing the others have to rally around him. As it is they have a very weak bowling side, and their batting...they do have a good batting side with two young boys batting really well. But little bit of inexperience also cost them the match.”
The 59-year old was however more critical of Mumbai's bowling which he feels lacks the depth and ability to take wickets. Mumbai's bowling strike rate of 20.63 in IPL 2022 is only better than RCB (20.96) and CSK (21.26) while their average of 32.74 is the worst this season.
“Their bowling is the only reason why their run rate per over has gone up because they don't have good bowlers to get wickets. In T20 if you don't keep getting wickets then it becomes difficult for the batting side to score more runs or set the target. This is the basic problem that they are having. They have a good batting line-up but what's the use of it if they are giving 14-16 runs per over,” he said.
