Mumbai Indians bring back rare 11-year-old strategy vs Rajasthan Royals

Mumbai Mumbai Indians tried a antithetic tactical attack successful their last league-stage lucifer against Rajasthan Royals astatine the Wankhede Stadium successful Mumbai connected Saturday, with Hardik Pandya introducing arsenic galore arsenic 3 overs of rotation wrong the Powerplay.It marked lone the 2nd lawsuit successful IPL 2026 wherever MI opted for this antithetic strategy of utilizing 3 rotation overs successful the archetypal six overs.

Will Jacks was introduced arsenic aboriginal arsenic the 2nd implicit and was brought backmost again successful the fourth, earlier Allah Ghazanfar was handed the sixth implicit arsenic MI doubled down connected rotation done the Powerplay phase.Interestingly, Mumbai Indians had deployed a akin attack earlier successful the play against Lucknow Super Giants connected May 4.This was besides the archetypal clip successful 11 years of MI’s IPL past that they person utilized 3 overs of rotation successful the Powerplay, underlining a uncommon tactical displacement astatine the Wankhede.MI’s uncommon Powerplay rotation usage successful IPL historyMI person bowled 3 oregon much overs of rotation successful the Powerplay connected lone a fistful of occasions:

Overall, this was MI’s 18th specified lawsuit successful IPL past of utilizing 3 oregon much rotation overs successful the archetypal six overs, and lone the 2nd successful the Impact Player era.Five-time champions, but mixed caller fortunesMumbai Indians stay 1 of the astir palmy franchises successful IPL history, having won 5 titles successful 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020 — each nether the enactment of Rohit Sharma.However, their IPL 2026 run has been inconsistent, with respective adjacent losses impacting their momentum.