Mumbai Indians (MI) couldn’t have had a more dreadful start to their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 campaign. The loss to defending champions CSK on Thursday (April 21) was their seventh in a row, the worst losing streak in the tournament's history.
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Former MI batter Chris Lynn remarked on ESPNcricinfo's T20 Time: Out' show that he saw "11 individuals" rather than a "team of 11" and that the team has issues with the bat, ball, fielding, and mentality.
The five-time champions are virtually out of the playoff reckoning following their defeat to CSK.
"Winning is a habit and losing is a habit...Mumbai have got issues with the bat, with the ball, and in the field and mentally. It just seems like there are factions everywhere in the set-up," Lynn said.
The 32-year-old played just one match for the Rohit Sharma-led franchise during his stint in the 2020 and 2021 seasons. He claimed that he didn't witness experienced players assisting the captain and calming him down in high-pressure circumstances as was the case when he was a part of the dressing room.
"When you are down at the bottom of the table, guys like your captain, but also Kieron Pollard — he will be normally running in from deep mid-on or mid-off, helping out, calming him down.”
"We haven't seen that with Mumbai yet because they are starting to sort of break off into little groups and they just want to get off the field. And it's not a great sign. And I think the change room right now wouldn't be a great place to be in."
The former Australian batter, who was a part of the Mumbai squad that won the championship title in 2020, said that back then there were a lot of “organic” conversations going around in the dressing room without coaching staff telling them to do that because “blokes were up and about wanting to win.”
“When they won the tournament two years ago, there were conversations happening all the time — how can we get better, how can we get out of the over. All those little organic conversations were happening without coaching staff telling them to do that because blokes were up and about wanting to win.”
"So we are not seeing that, we are seeing the complete opposite: it seems like instead of a team of 11, there's 11 individuals out there."
Lynn is optimistic that things will start to fall into place and that the franchise will begin to play better cricket.
"So hopefully they can sort that out soon because when Mumbai is playing good cricket it is good for IPL, it's good for world cricket, and they are a very, very impressive side when they are doing well."
The Rohit Sharma-led side will next take on the Lucknow Super Giants at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Sunday (April 24).
(PTI INPUTS)
