Mumbai Indians (MI) is the most successful franchise in the Indian Premier League (IPL). The Rohit Sharma-led side have won as many as five IPL titles – which is the most by any team in the history of the cash-rich league.
The biggest reason behind Mumbai’s constant success in IPL is the strong Indian core they possess. Over the years, it has been seen that all successful teams in the lucrative league have one thing in common, and that is their top-quality Indian players.
However, in the mega-auction of IPL 2022, teams like MI will have some sort of problems as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is planning to add two more franchises in IPL which will force MI to leave out some of their successful Indian players.
The BCCI has decided to auction two new teams in May during the final phase of the upcoming edition of IPL. If this happens, then in the mega-auction, the Mumbai-based franchise won’t be able to retain the swashbuckling batsmen duo of Surya Kumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan – who recently made their national debut for Team India in the second T20I against England.
According to the retention rule, an IPL franchise can retain any three players, but RTM can be used for keeping only one overseas and one uncapped player. In this scenario, MI could prefer retaining captain Rohit Sharma, speedster Jasprit Bumrah and all-rounder Hardik Pandya as the three capped Indian players. In this case, MI will have to let go of both Kishan and Surya Kumar.
It may also be expected that the inclusion of two new teams might inspire the IPL Governing Council to change the existing rules. But only time will tell whether such modification would take place or not.
Speaking about Kishan and Surya, both played their maiden T20I game against England on Sunday, which the hosts won by seven wickets.
Surya did not get a chance to bat, but he took an impressive catch on the field. Kishan, on the other hand, came to open Indian innings and completely destroyed the English bowling attack. He scored a tremendous half-century and helped his team bounce back in the series after losing the opening fixture.
