Former Indian opener Virender Sehwag has pointed fingers at this Mumbai Indians (MI) The root cause of their poor performance in the 2026 Indian Premier League (IPL) is their underwhelming bowling performance. This comes after their defeat at the hands of Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday, April 29.
Batting first, MI scored 243 runs on the board thanks to Ryan Rickelton's unbeaten 123 runs. Despite posting such a big score on the board, SRH easily chased it down with eight balls to spare.
SehwagTherefore, it is fair to question the Indians' bowling unit for allowing the opposition to chase down the target despite having some of the best bowlers in T20 cricket history.
“MI's issue is execution. They are not able to execute their plans. When you need wickets, you are not getting success. How do you stop runs? You can stop runs only by dismissing opponent batsmen. There has been a big decline in MI's bowling. Earlier, they used to take early wickets with Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult. But Bumrah was expensive today. His performance in bowling has not been good,” Sehwag said. Said on Cricbuzz.
Jasprit Bumrah is usually MI's go-to bowler, not only for wickets but also for keeping the scoring under control. However, he failed to do any of these things against SRH, conceding 54 runs in his quota of four overs at an economy rate of 13.50. The right-arm fast bowler has not had a good season this season, taking only two wickets in eight matches and scoring at an economy of 8.80, his highest since the 2015 IPL.
Bumrah is not the only experienced player struggling to find consistency this season. New Zealand star Trent Boult has also taken only two wickets in four matches this season, while giving runs at an economy of 11.61. As things stand, MI's leading wicket-taker this season has been AM Ghazanfar, with 10 wickets to his name.
MI are currently ninth in the standings, with only four points to their name from their first eight matches of the season.
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