At the IPL Auction table, MI made some good decisions, some poor, and some even ugly. Getting the likes of Mitchell Santner, Trent Boult at Deepak Chahar worked well for their team, but then nothing explains absence of a full-time excellent opener from their team. At IPL 2024, Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan were the two dedicated openers for MI, so who will it be at IPL 2025?
MI at IPL Auction
Should the management go with Will Jacks at the top of the order with Rohit, or South Africa opener Ryan Rickelton? Well, the MI management was utmost happy when RCB didn’t enable the RTM option for Jacks, and that only gives away, they have big things planned for him, but he can’t be the solution for their top-order mess.
Instead, MI should look no further than “middle-order” batsman Tilak Varma. It would be an understatement to say, he’s been in fine nick. He recently became the first batsman to smash three consecutive T20 tons, out of which two came vs South Africa, and has shown tremendous potential.
Tilak Varma & Rohit Sharma to Open?
Not only has he been innovative with his shots, but his strike-rate has hit the roof. The MI retained player has scores of 107, 120, 151, and 57 in his last four matches and has been unstoppable. In his IPL career, he has played 39 matches, scored 1156 runs at an average of 39, and a strike rate of 146. In the internationals he has fared better with 616 runs in 20 matches.
So even though MI do have a few okayish options for the opening slot — Naman Dhir being another one — it should only go to Tilak Varma.
MI Full IPL 2025 Squad
Trent Boult, Naman Dhir, Robin Minz, Karn Sharma, Ryan Rickelton, Deepak Chahar, Allah Ghazanfar, Will Jacks, Ashwani Kumar, Mitchell Santner, Reece Topley, Shrijith Krishnan, Raj Angad Bawa, Satyanarayana Raju, Bevon Jacobs, Arjun Tendulkar, Lizaad Williams, Vignesh Puthur, Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah.
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IPL 2025 Scenario: After Auction, Tilak Varma only viable opener option for MI, with Rohit Sharma
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