Mumbai marches on

Harsha Bhogle reviews Mumbai’s performers in their successful run-up to a semi-final berth in the third edition of the IPL.

The little stutter behind them, the Mumbai Indians are finally in the semi-final. For their supporters it couldn’t have come a moment too soon. And while they celebrate a really outstanding innings from the batsman of the tournament, Sachin Tendulkar, they need to worry a bit about how reliant they are on him. For them to win, he needs to score a half-century and if he goes early they just seem incomplete.

They now have three games in which to get their balance right for the bigger games. Kieron Pollard was looking good but they really need to get Dwayne Bravo going to get the perfect balance and I won’t be surprised at all if they give him every opportunity to get back.

It will also allow them to see what their best batting order is. Currently Rayudu and Tiwari are occupying 3 and 4 but there is a case for putting Duminy in between. Then if Bravo and Pollard can be finishers, the Mumbai Indians will be complete. That will allow them to keep playing Sathish but that is a slot that needs to be studied a bit further. I don’t know when Abhishek Nayar returns but that would seem to be the perfect swap except that it will make finalising the batting order even more difficult. A small and happy problem though!

They will also be happy with the way Zaheer and Harbhajan are bowling. That augurs well for the T20 World Cup where everyone believes the wickets will be like those here! In this game, Zaheer ran in harder and was pushing the ball through faster than at any time I have seen in the last five years. Maybe Mumbai were pumped up because of the chatter during the Mumbai Indians innings but they looked very good indeed.

So Mumbai Indians through. Think Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Daredevils should get through and that leaves one spot open (net run rate might come into the picture) and in the next couple of days two teams might go out!!