3 reasons why MI got knocked out of Tata IPL 2023

At the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, the Gujarat Titans (GT) trounced the Mumbai Indians (MI) by an enormous margin of 62 runs in Qualifier 2. With this outcome, GT advanced to their second consecutive final, while MI were eliminated from the Tata IPL 2023.

GT batted first and finished their 20 overs with a massive total of 233/3. Shubman Gill, who scored his third IPL century of the year with 129 runs off 60 balls, stole the show for GT.

The Indian star paced his innings at a strike rate of 215, including 7 fours and 10 maximums. Cameo appearances from Sai Sudarshan (43 runs off 31 balls) and GT Captain Hardik Pandya (28* runs off 13 balls) gave him strong support.

With the score at 155/4 in 14.2 overs as their reply, MI remained in the contest till the 15th over. However, their innings crumbled after Suryakumar Yadav was dismissed (61 runs off 38 balls) after scoring a half-century. Mohit Sharma recorded an outstanding 5-fer to bundle out the Mumbai Indians.

In addition to Yadav, Tilak Varma (43 runs off 14 balls) and Cameron Green (30 runs off 20 balls) made significant contributions to their team's cause.

However, it was Gill's outstanding performance that ultimately separated the two teams. The young batsman from Punjab pummelled the MI bowlers into the ground, making batting appear absurdly simple.

However, Mumbai making this far also needed some great resolve. Overall, the most successful team in IPL history didn't produce the kind of efficient performance this season that once made them dominate the league. Now that they are out of the tournament, it's a good time to look at 3 reasons why MI got knocked out of Tata IPL 2023.

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#1 Weak bowling attack

Barring Piyush Chawla, none of the MI bowlers featured among the top-10 wicket-takers of IPL 2023. Apart from Chawla, Akash Madhwal was the only bowler who impressed for MI.

With Jasprit Bumrah injured, the Mumbai side relied a lot on overseas bowlers like Jofra Archer, Jason Behrendorff, Riley Meredith, Cameron Green, and Chris Jordan. However, all of them failed to deliver the goods for MI.

Even Indian youngsters such as Arshad Khan, Kumar Kartikeya, Arjun Tendulkar, and Hrithik Shokeen failed to deliver the goods.

The economy rates of Archer, Behrendorff, Meredith, Green, Jordan, Khan, Kartikeya, Tendulkar, Shokeen were 9.50, 9.21, 10.52, 9.50, 10.77, 13.41, 8.73, 9.35, and 9.84. Thus, the lack of wickets taken and the high economy rates of the bowlers hurt MI greatly throughout the competition.

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#2 Poor form of captain Rohit Sharma

Rohit Sharma

MI Captain Rohit Sharma had a poor IPL 2023. Sharma struggled throughout the season, failing to replicate the performances he usually puts in at the top of the order.

In 16 matches, the current India captain struck just 332 runs at an average of 20.75 and a strike rate of 132.80. He scored just two half-centuries throughout the season.

Thus, for almost the entirety of the season, MI failed to get good starts as their skipper failed to deliver. Rohit Sharma's poor form has been a sign of worry not just for MI but the Indian team too in recent months.

India play the World Test Championship final next month and have the ICC World Cup later in the year. Considering that Rohit Sharma scored five centuries in the last ODI World Cup, the Indian team needs him to fire.

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#3 Over-reliance of MI on Suryakumar Yadav

Suryakumar Yadav

Suryakumar Yadav was the only MI batter, barring Ishan Kishan, who featured in the top-10 run-getters list of IPL 2023. In 16 matches, Yadav amassed 605 runs at an average of 43.21 and a strike-rate of 181.13.

He scored five half-centuries and a hundred this season. In the second half of the competition, Yadav had scores of 55, 66, 26, 83, 103*, 7, 25*, 33, and 61.

While players like Cameron Green, Ishan Kishan, Tim David, Nehal Wadhera did manage to put in a few fine performances, none of them could match the sheer consistency of SKY.

With their bowling as vulnerable as it was, Mumbai Indians required more than one consistent batter to reach the finals. Thus, in Qualifier 2, Suryakumar Yadav was left with just way too much to do alone, in spite of a solid half-century.