How the Rajasthan Royals have solved the riddle of the Mumbai Indians

The 14th edition of the Indian Premier League is upon us, and the big question is ‘can any team stop the Indian giant from Mumbai?’ The Mumbai Indians are on a streak of successive title wins and look well set to create history by becoming the first team to achieve an IPL trophy hat-trick. They are comfortably the best team of the past two seasons, winning almost 69% of their games, well ahead of the second-place capitals of Delhi (58%).

The only side that has been Mumbai nightmare during its recent successful stint has been the Rajasthan Royals. Since returning to the fold in 2018, the Jaipur-based franchise has outscored the Mumbai Indians in five out of six head-to-head matches and is the only team to have a positive win-loss record against the Mumbai Indians in this span. .

MI vs opposition teams since 2018

How have the Royals managed to find a solution to the Mumbai puzzle?

Team dynamics

It is interesting to note that in the six meetings between the Royals and Mumbai in the past three seasons, Mumbai hit first, which has helped the Royals in a big way. Mumbai has a lower win percentage when they have set a goal, while the Royals have a highly skewed win-loss record when chasing compared to hitting first (win% from 52 in chases to 29.41 when they set a goal) in this period.

The Royals’ best chasing record can be attributed to their superior batting depth thanks to their overseas contingent in a bowling attack dominated by relatively low-profile national names. In the five victories against the Mumbai Indians since 2018, the Royals have played the overseas combination of three foreign hitters plus one pacemaker, namely Jofra Archer. In the Royals’ only loss to Mumbai at IPL 2020, the Royals played a 2-2 combination with Tom Curran sharing fast bowling duties alongside Archer with the other two spots held by Jos Buttler and Steven Smith.

Mumbai starts well, loses momentum midway

Mumbai had the best of the opening exchanges in their batting innings against the Royals and looked well placed midway to big final flourishes. They never lost more than one wicket in the first ten overs and their lowest score after ten overs in these games was 81. The Royals’ fast pitchers hit regular strikes in the 11-16 overs span that absorbed whatever momentum Mumbai gained. in your first half of the tickets.

Throughout their five losses to the Royals in the past three seasons, Mumbai has lost 14 wickets in the 11-16 overs phase, scoring just 6.47 per over. The collapses meant that when the explosive trio of Mumbai Indians finalists in Kieron Pollard and the Pandya brothers reached the middle, they had no drive to feed themselves to start their innings.

Jofra Archer’s ‘X factor’

Archer is one of the best bowlers on the T20 circuit for the past few years and no other opponent has endured the brunt of his pace than the Mumbai Indians. In six games against them, Archer has started 12 wickets to 13.67 at an economy of less than seven over. While Archer hasn’t been as effective on the new ball against Mumbai (1/51 in seven Powerplay overs) as he has been on IPL overall (15.88 average and 5.08 economy rate), the Royals saved their overs for The second half. of innings to generate favorable matchups and target the batting weakness of the Mumbai Indians finalists.

The Royals often brought Archer in for a change in the middle as an enforcer to break partnerships like in this game and this one.

Most of Archer’s overs against Mumbai have occurred in the kill phase, where he faces the finalists from Mumbai. Archer’s high pace and toughness have come to be the downfall of the Kieron Pollard and Pandya brothers’ trio, and Archer copes well with all three. Against Hardik Pandya, Archer has thrown 30 balls, all in the 16-20 overs phase, and has conceded just 35 runs and sacked him twice.

To put it in perspective, at 59 balls against other Royals bowlers, Hardik has scored 146 runs at a mind-blowing strike rate of 247, going out once. Archer has been getting better against Krunal Pandya, firing him twice on 14 balls and conceding just eight runs. In the nine balls the Sussex closer threw at Pollard, he fired him once and never gave a cap.

Archer vs Mumbai by phases

Keep pacemakers at bay, attack spinners

Much of the success of the Mumbai Indians in the recent past can be attributed to their rhythm bowling unit led by Jasprit Bumrah. Mumbai has given a high priority to Powerplay wickets and they often go to a Powerplay specialist abroad quickly together with Bumrah, looking for land with the new ball. The Royals have had a top-notch hitting unit that is adept at pace of play, and most of their hitters, abroad and at home, have a better record against pace than spin. Therefore, by design, the Royals hitting is better equipped to deal with Mumbai new ball bowlers and this had a knock-on effect in the later stages of innings.

The Royals higher order neutralized Mumbai ‘s threat of pace in the Powerplay and kept up with the required pace at the end of six overs, never losing more than two wickets. In the only time the Royals lost a game to Mumbai, the Mumbai Indians pacemakers made early breakthroughs and reduced the Royals to 31/3 in six overs. In the other five games, Bumrah chose just one solo wicket in five Powerplay overs, while Jason Berendorff, Trent Boult and Alzarri Joseph have been wicketless from the other end.

The battle of Powerplay

Once the Powerplay threat was neutralized, the Royals gained access to the underbelly of the Mumbai Indians’ bowling unit, the spinners, with much of their hitting resources still intact. The defensive spin duo of Krunal Pandya and Rahul Chahar aren’t great turns of the ball, which has made it easier for Royals hitters, who are susceptible to quality spin, to attack them with more intent and purpose. In the intermissions (7-15), the Royals have scored at 9.44, averaging more than 70 runs per ground in their five wins against Mumbai (compared to Mumbai 29.67 against the Royals in these games) . The dominance of royalty over the spinners of Mumbai explains their superiority in the middle. In the past three seasons, Royals hitters have scored more than nine runs over against all three Mumbai spinners combined.

It’s interesting to note that, before him, Krunal, Chahar and Mayank Markande deflect the ball from the Royals’ right-hand dominated batting lineup, making it a negative matchup for the Royals hitter. In fact, in one of the games, Mumbai played Chahar and Markande against the Royals, which remains the only instance where they used two specialized legs in an IPL game.

The Royals haven’t used any more lefties in the middle order to counter this negative showdown with Ben Stokes being the only southpaw to consistently rank in their top six. The duo of Jos Buttler and Sanju Samson have had the best of the Mumbai spinning attack despite being negative matchups for them in theory. The Royals hitters were also helped by the fact that four of their six games against the Mumbai Indians were at Wankhede Stadium and Abu Dhabi Stadium, where the surface offers a real bounce and the ball hits the bat.

MI spinners wise opponents (since IPL 2018)

Mumbai has often used Bumrah in the intermissions as a partnership breaker with reasonable success in recent years, but the Royals have been smart in playing Bumrah’s spells in the intermissions without letting him attack in his brief second spells. With Bumrah being their main death overs bowler, Mumbai doesn’t have the luxury of taking him down in the middle. In total, Bumrah has thrown six mid-stage overs (7-15 overs) against Royals without taking a wicket.

The Royals’ dominance in the middle phase has been so complete that in four of their five wins, the required rate was below eight when the death overs began, and they even had enough ground at their disposal. It gave the likes of Bumrah and Lasith Malinga a lot less to play with. In the other game, they needed 50 runs from the final five overs with a well-placed Samson with Buttler and seven wickets remaining. A meltdown followed and the Royals were ultimately rescued by an 11-ball cameo from K Gowtham that brought them home in a tight finish.

The Rajasthan Royals have had a well matched lineup to counter the strengths of the Mumbai Indians and have shown a successful roster to break through the strength of Mumbai. Whether the other parties can follow the Royals roster could well be a determining factor if the IPL trophies go to Mumbai for the third consecutive season.