"Mumbai have already made it an 8-team tournament" - Aakash Chopra criticizes Mumbai Indians' tactics against RCB

The Mumbai Indians suffered their fourth consecutive loss [P/C: iplt20.com]

Aakash Chopra has highlighted that the Mumbai Indians' (MI) loss against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) has almost reduced IPL 2022 to an eight-team affair.

MI were handed a seven-wicket drubbing by RCB in Saturday night's Indian Premier League encounter. Both Rohit Sharma's side and the Chennai Super Kings have now lost their first four matches of the tournament and have an uphill task ahead of them to qualify for the playoffs.

While reviewing the MI-RCB encounter in a video shared on his YouTube channel, Aakash Chopra was extremely critical of the Mumbai Indians' team composition. He observed:

"Mumbai have already made it an eight-team tournament. What is Mumbai doing? They decided to go with just two overseas players. I mean why, how? Tim David, Fabien Allen, Riley Meredith, Tymal Mills - all of them are sitting out. You have Jaydev Unadkat and Ramandeep - you played them but is that going to work?"

The cricketer-turned-commentator pointed out that the Mumbai Indians had weakened their bowling lineup considerably with their team selection. Chopra explained:

"You have such a long batting that you have just four bowlers left - Jaydev Unadkat, Basil Thampi, Jasprit Bumrah and Murugan Ashwin and these are your four. It means the fifth bowler will be either Kieron Pollard or Dewald Brevis. Good luck Mumbai."

MI's decision to field just two overseas players and Ramandeep Singh as an extra batter perplexed most cricket experts. The call further diminished their already thin bowling resources.

"When the wickets started to fall, it was like a cycle stand" - Aakash Chopra on the Mumbai Indians' batting

Suryakumar Yadav was the only Mumbai Indians battler to play a substantial knock [P/C: iplt20.com]

Aakash Chopra highlighted that the Mumbai Indians were hit hard by a flurry of wickets after a decent start. He elaborated:

"When you play such few bowlers and make a below-par score, there is no way you can win the game. The batting was extremely ordinary although Ishan Kishan and Rohit Sharma were batting well. But when the wickets started to fall, it was like a cycle stand."

Rohit: "We had gotten off to a 50-run partnership, but I got out at the wrong time. That hurt us a little bit."

#OneFamily #दिलखोलके #MumbaiIndians #RCBvMI #TATAIPL

The 44-year-old pointed out that MI might have been restricted to an even lower score if Suryakumar Yadav had not played a fighting knock. Chopra said:

"It was good that Suryakumar Yadav was there else this team would have folded up for 125. You have got Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Dewald Brevis, Tilak Varma and Kieron Pollard - they were all done and dusted. When Ramandeep got out, I said it's over."

Chopra added that Yadav's solo effort was never going to be enough for the Mumbai Indians. He stated:

"Suryakumar Yadav fought there till the end. He has played two consecutive good knocks, took the team to a fighting total but not happening. What will one man alone do? That's what we are understanding from this game."

While highlighting that Jasprit Bumrah was the only potent weapon in MI's bowling attack, Aakash Chopra concluded by stating that the five-time champions currently have their weakest lineup in IPL history.