Mumbai Indians team 2023: Mumbai will arrive at the IPL 2023 auction with a budget of INR 20.55 crore. They can buy up to nine cricketers, of whom at most three can be overseas.

Mumbai’s five IPL titles are the most for any side, but they had a horror start to IPL 2022, becoming the first team to start a season with eight defeats. They recovered to win four matches out of 14, but could not prevent from finishing last. That resulted in 12 releases (in addition to Kieron Pollard’s retirement).

Ahead of this season’s auctions, they acquired Jason Behrendorff from Royal Challengers Bangalore, and released Daniel Sams, M Ashwin, Tymal Mills, Jaydev Unadkat, Riley Meredith, Anmolpreet Singh, Fabian Allen, Arun Juyal, Mayank Markande, Sanjay Yadav, Basil Thampi, and Rahul Buddhi. They appointed Mark Boucher as head coach, Pollard as batting coach, and J Arunkumar as assistant coach.

Mumbai Indians team 2023

Strengths

Despite the poor season, Mumbai found a new core that is likely to be part of their outfit for the years to come. Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Tim David, Tilak Varma, and Dewald Brevis are a formidable line-up, more so because Kishan keeps wicket and David and Brevis both bowl. Add Rohit Sharma and Tristan Stubbs into the mix, and it is only a matter of time before Mumbai start clicking.

Yet another key acquisition who worked was left-armer Kumar Kartikeya, who bowls both finger-spin and wrist-spin. They indeed have a strong Indian core.

Weaknesses

Mumbai’s strength used to be their trinity of all-rounders. However, after the Pandya brothers moved to other franchises, and Pollard retired, they need to regain that balance in the middle-order. David and Brevis are vital additions, but they are not quite four-over bowlers.

With the uncertainty around Jofra Archer, Mumbai need more fast bowlers too even after the acquisition of Behrendorff. They even need more spinners.

Likely buys

All-rounders, as many as possible. Probably not batting all-rounders like Ben Stokes or Cam Green but bowling all-rounders like Sam Curran or Jason Holder, or spinners who can bat anywhere, like Shakib Al Hasan or Mohammad Nabi. For backup, they can invest in Keemo Paul, Fabian Allen, or Odean Smith. Among Indians, they may want Kerala’s Vaisakh Chandran.

If Archer returns, Mumbai may not be able to play expensive overseas spinners like Adam Zampa (INR 1.5 crore) or Adil Rashid (INR 2 crore). At INR 1 crore, Tabraiz Shamsi is a better option (or Ish Sodhi, at INR 75 lakh). Expect them to also fight for senior Indian spinners like Piyush Chawla, Amit Mishra, and Shahbaz Nadeem or local man Tanush Kotian.

For fast bowlers, they may prefer to invest long-term, in Shivam Mavi, Ishan Porel, or V Kaverappa, or the Jammu & Kashmir speedsters like Basit Bashir, Aquib Nabi, or Shahrukh Dar. Asian seamers like Dushmantha Chameera or Naveen-ul-Haq can be reasonable back-up options.

Mumbai Indians squad (overseas cricketers underlined)

Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Tim David, Jofra Archer, Dewald Brevis, Jason Behrendorff, Tristan Stubbs, Tilak Verma, Kumar Kartikeya, Arshad Khan, Hrithik Shokeen, Ramandeep Singh, Arjun Tendulkar.

Purse for Mumbai Indians team, 2023: INR 20.45 crore. Slots remaining: Nine (three overseas)