IPL 2025: Fragile Top Order And...? - 3 Weaknesses Of Hardik Pandya's Mumbai Indians

Probuddha Bhattacharjee

Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya for MI [Source: @CricCrazyJohns/x.com]Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya for MI [Source: @CricCrazyJohns/x.com]

The Mumbai Indians have been one of the most successful teams in the Indian Premier League. They have dominated the tournament from 2013-2020 and won five titles during the phase. 

One of the major reasons behind the success of the Mumba Indians have been their ability to assort strong and all-purpose squads during the auctions. They maintained the same strategy during the IPL 2025 mega auction and have went onto make a good looking unit overall.

In this article we will take a look at the full MI squad for IPL 2025 and then analyse their weaknesses.

MI Squad For IPL 2025

Batters: Robin Minz, Naman Dhir, Ryan Rickelton, Rohit Sharma, Krishnan Shrijith, Suryakumar Yadav
All-rounders: Raj Bawa, Will Jacks, Hardik Pandya, Mitchell Santner, Tilak Varma, Ashwani Kumar, Bevon Jacobs, Vignesh Puthur, Satyanarayana Raju
Bowlers: Trent Boult, Jaspirt Bumrah, Deepak Chahar, Allah Ghazanfar, Karn Sharma, Arjun Tendulkar, Reece Topley, Lizaad Williams

Weaknesses Of Mumbai Indians For IPL 2025

3. Vulnerable Top Order

Mumbai Indians will be looking to use Ryan Rickelton as their opener with Rohit Sharma. The Indian ODI and Test captain has not have had the best of times with the bat recently. If he carries on this form till IPL 2025, then they might have a problem in getting solid starts during the tournament. With Rickelton also coming in new into the team, there will be more problem from them to get the gel right amongst the players.

2. Lack Of A Powerpacked Finisher

With Tim David out of the fray, there are chances that Mumbai Indians will be looking to use Hardik Pandya as their opener. Also, the absence of power in the lower middle-order will put them in a conundrum as where to use Will Jacks. The fact that Pandya's power hitting in the death phase has also declined in the last few years will add to the concerns of the the team management.

1. Hardik Pandya's Leadership

Hardik Pandya was handed over the the captaincy of the Mumbai Indians during the IPL 2024. The all-rounder came in as the leader of the five-time champions with great reputation from his time as the leader of the Gujarat Titans. However, he could not translate his captaincy wonders for the Mumbai Indians. He looked like an one dimensional skipper with not much of a back up plan. With the IPL 2025 coming, the absence of dynamism in Hardik's captaincy can be something that pulls back MI during the tournament.