In sport every now and then you get a person or team who are called the nearly men. The best example of this is Jimmy White who famously kept loosing the world championship in the final. Mumbai Indians are the nearly men of the IPL. They are always one the favourites to win the competition, they have the best fan following mainly due to Sachin Tendulkar yet they seems to falter in the semi finals or final. They have won a Champions League, but this is not a competition that many people take to seriously.
Once again Mumbai have a new captain, this is after Sachin was the captain in 2011, Harbhajan in 2012. This year the job is given to their big money signing Ricky Ponting. Its not a surprise that Harbhajan had been stripped of the captaincy after last year he could not control his players attitude towards umpires.
What will be interesting is to how Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting will play together. This will be a sight to behold. I can imagine them batting while Kallis is bowling, this will be the three players of their generation going head to head.
Once again Mumbai will be one of the best fielding sides with Rohit Sharma and Kieron Pollard out there, passing on the messages of Johnty Rhodes. Mumbai have a strategy of recruiting many young Indian players as well as young relatively unknown players. This has been pretty successful for the team on the whole.
Captain: Ricky Ponting
Star Man: Sachin Tendulkar
Six Hitter: Kieron Pollard
Leading Bowler: Lasith Malinga
My prediction: Runners Up
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