Mumbai Indians IPL 2012: Season Review
Mumbai Indians in IPL 2012 were no where near their best. Despite splashing huge amount of money on buying some key players at the IPL auctions, their big buys rarely got on top of their game and made hardly made any impact. And many of their victories have come in last over miracles. Let’s review the IPL 2012 season of the Mumbai Indians on various issues like where they finished, their key players, the best buys, the flops and many more.
Mumbai Indians position in IPL 2012: where they finished
Mumbai Indians finished fourth and reached the play-offs of the IPL 2012 season. They finished third on the points table during the league stage of IPL 2012 with a total of 20 points from 16 matches which included 10 wins and 6 losses. They lost to Chennai Super Kings in the Eliminator match by 38 runs and were out of the tournament.
It was a rather disappointing IPL 2012 season for the Mumbai Indians compared to last year's IPL where they finished 3rd. Despite spending huge amounts of money to refurbish the squad, including three experienced Indian IPL campaigners in the form of Dinesh Kartik, Pragyan Ojha and RP Singh, Mumbai Indians failed to plug the perceived weaknesses. Key player of Mumbai Indians in IPL 2012
Yet again Lasith Malinga proved to be the stand-out performer for the Mumbai Indians in IPL 2012, particularly during the first half of the season. Towards the end of the season Malinga's form tailed off a touch and he leaked 41 runs off his 4 overs in the Eliminator match against the Chennai Super Kings making it his worst performance of IPL 2012.
Still, Malinga was undoubtedly the go-to and best bowler for the Mumbai Indians and his tally of 22 wickets in 13 matches at an economy rate of 6.30 speaks for itself. Malinga's intelligent blend of bouncers, yorkers, and slower balls kept the batmen guessing all the time and had them bamboozle most of the time and this is where Malinga has underscored despite being one of the finest Twenty20 bowlers around.Bargain buys for Mumbai Indians in IPL 2012
There aren't too many players on the list for this category as many of the Mumbai Indians' cheaper buys in the auction hardly got to play any matches. West Indian player, Dwayne Smith perhaps somewhat fits in this category who joined the Mumbai Indians squad a month into the tournament as replacement for the injured Australian fast bowler Mitchell Johnson.
Dwayne Smith contributed to the team's victory on two occasions during the league stage– first against the Chennai Super Kings where he thrashed 14 runs off the last three balls of the match to script a dramatic victory for the Mumbai Indians and his second major contribution came against the Rajashthan Royals where he scored an unbeaten 87 runs off 58 balls in an unbroken 163-run partnership with Sachin Tendulkar.Flop buy for Mumbai Indians in IPL 2012
Dinesh Karthik proved to be one of the flops for the Mumbai Indians in IPL 2012 season. Mumbai Indians bought Dinesh Karthik for $2.35m from Kings XI Punjab. Though he lent solidity behind the stumps as a wicket-keeper, he failed to impress as a batsman. He was given many opportunities to bat at No. 4, but he failed to provide the stability when the top order batsmen failed and also did not provide the team impetus with big power-hitting in the end overs. Dinesh Karthik, who was one among the only four Mumbai Indians players, who played every game of the IPL 2012 season, had a disappointing tournament scoring just 238 runs in 17 matches with a strike rate of 111.73.Highlight performances of Mumbai Indians in IPL 2012
The opening match of the IPL 2012 season saw both the pre-tournament favorites, the Mumbai Indians and the Chennai Super Kings, battle it out against each other, which the Mumbai Indians dominated completely and secured as easy victory. The highlight of the match was South African batsman Richard Levi's quick-fire half-century in his debut match for the Mumbai Indians and also in the IPL.
Another highlight for the Mumbai Indians in IPL 2012 was their victory against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens snapping their seven-match unbeaten streak, with Rohit Sharma, proving the great talent that is his, scoring his maiden IPL century.
The Mumbai Indians showed their never-say-die attitude when they successfully defended a paltry score of 120 against the Pune Warriors, which underlines their spirit in a tournament where six matches were won in the final over of the game.Lowlights of Mumbai Indians in IPL 2012
The biggest low for the Mumbai Indians this IPL season was undoubtedly their surrender to Delhi Daredevils at their home ground when they collapsed to the lowest score of the season. The match began with the worst possible start with Davy Jacobs' 10-ball duck and the innings hardly improved from then on. At one point in the match they were 44-6, very much in contention for the record of being bowled out for the lowest total in IPL history.What went wrong for the Mumbai Indians in IPL 2012
Mumbai Indians seem to refurbish their squad every season, but each time they have ended up falling short of the finishing line. The influx of RP Singh, Dinesh Karthik, and Pragyan Ojha promised to provide a strong base of Indian talent, but the mediocre performances of senior players Sachin Tendulkar and Harbhajan Singh offset their contributions.
The major reason for Mumbai Indians' failure in IPL 2012 can be attributed to the lack of a steady opening combination. They were experimenting throughout the season to find the right opening combination with all of Richard Levi, Devy Jacobs, Aiden Blizzard, James Franklin, Dwyane Smith and Herschelle Gibbs partnering Sachin Tendulkar at the top, but none of the combinations had much of an impact. In all eight different opening combinations were tried by the Mumbai Indians, with only the combination of James Franklin and Sachin Tendulkar playing more that 3 matches together.
The experimenting continued lower down the batting order as the Mumbai Indians found it difficult to put together four in-form overseas players. All of Herschelle Gibbs, Richard Levi, Robin Peterson, and Dwyane Smith made huge impacts in their first game but later faded away. They struggled to find a settled combination throughout the season. Mumbai Indians have tried the most number of players by a franchise (24) in a season together with Deccan Chargers. Comparatively, other successful franchisees like the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Chennai Super Kings using much fewer players with 18 and 17 respectively.
The teams' performance was impressive in the league stage with several out-of-the-blue wins but the team lacked major dominating performances which eventually lead to their downfall.
