3 reasons why MI New York are struggling in MLC 2024

This year has been a horrible one for the Mumbai Indians (MI) franchise, with their sides struggling in three of the top T20 leagues across the globe. The Hardik Pandya-led outfit in the IPL had its worst-ever season, finishing last and being the first out of the race to the playoffs. MI Cape Town came last in the SA20 with just three wins from seven games.

And, now, the final savior, MI New York (MINY), too, have managed just one win in five games in Major League Cricket (MLC) to sit fifth among six teams. Their performance is the most disappointing because they are the defending champions and have managed to bring together some of the best T20 players in the world.

Their whopping 94-run loss to Washington Freedom on Wednesday seemed like a breaking point. The team got out for the second-lowest MLC total of 88 within 14 overs in a chase of 183, with debutant Romario Shepherd top-scoring with 25.

Here's a simple dissection of their issues and why they are difficult to solve:

#3 Young top order not firing

This was the defending champions' top four against Washington Freedom: Steven Taylor, Shayan Jahangir, Monank Patel, and Dewald Brevis. The answer lies in that sentence: you can't have such an inexperienced top four in a league like MLC where the powerplay overs are more crucial than IPL and SA20.

As Marco Jansen and Jasmeet Singh got the ball to move, none of these players found gaps to rotate the strike and ended up giving away their wickets. By the time Nicholas Pooran and Kieron Pollard came together, the match was all but done.

Last season, MINY had Pooran fixed at number three and he won countless games. That's where he single-handedly won them the first game of 2024 too.

But since then, he has batted once each at number three, number four and number five to accommodate younger, inexperienced batters. When Pooran isn't driving the game on his tempo, no one is.

The day he'll do well again from whatever position, they might win again but until then, it seems difficult. This is not a case of over-dependence on one player; instead, it's about not building around your best player how you should.

#2 Poor decision-making

Captain Kieron Pollard called the effort against Freedom "atrocious," saying that it was unacceptable to ask the middle-order to bat in two straight powerplays.

However, what you are given by the game on the day is one thing; how you react to it is another. MINY have also got some fairly basic calls wrong in that regard.

For example, it's not difficult to figure out that Dewald Brevis is not a powerplay player. Still, MINY chose to ignore that against Freedom despite seeing him be at his best against the old ball in the previous season.

Then, MINY dropped Kagiso Rabada for this game against Freedom. They might be the only team in the world who'll play Rabada in his first game in the middle of the season where he goes wicketless in a 15-run loss and drop him in the next.

They didn't even use the luxury of bringing Anrich Nortje into the team. This meant that the bowling attack had two USA bowlers: Noshtush Kenjige and Ehsan Adil, who couldn't support the senior players at all.

Pollard himself has been a bit of an issue. He flexed his biceps in the celebration of his second wicket against Freedom after theatrically pulling out of the ball twice just to put off the batter when his team had already conceded 180+.

It worked as Andries Gous played a false shot but it begged the question: if Pollard was this confident in his ability, why did he just bowl two overs in the game? He hasn't been able to do much with the bat and is not utilizing his bowling while also not looking anywhere near as sharp as he used to be in the field.

One of the reasons could be that he doesn't play that often anymore. After all, he has retired to coaching in the IPL already. If you look at it that way, MINY are blocking an overseas spot from Tim David, Rabada and Nortje for an IPL coach!

#1 Over-dependence on Rashid Khan

This is the case of over-dependence: leg-spinner Rashid Khan was the Player of the Match in MINY's last game for his batting. The poor form of batters has meant that he is getting more chances to bat than he should and he's carrying the line-up more often than he should in a healthy, well-balanced team.

He's doing that with the ball too. Against Freedom, he came to bowl the third and fifth overs, which was an immensely rare sight. He got taken to the cleaners in the first over, took Steven Smith's wicket in the second but still ended up conceding 39 runs (he got another wicket later on) in his four overs at an economy rate of 9.8.

In comparison, Freedom's Glenn Maxwell, who bowled with the old ball, which was more helpful in attracting false shots for the spinner, also took two wickets in just 2.3 overs with an economy rate of 8.

It was Rashid's off-day with the ball as he failed to get his lengths right but the team paid an unjustifiable price for it. The leggie is a luxury that needs to be used sparingly and specifically but like with Pooran, MINY are failing him.