Mumbai combine style and substance
The Big Picture
When the Ambani group bought the Mumbai franchise for $111.9m, they would have been pleased with the investment, given the sheer size of Mumbai's cricket-following masses, and the larger-than-life status of their "icon" player Sachin Tendulkar. However, over a period of time, a team's success must start to match its popularity in order to maintain the fans' support.
After a poor first two seasons, Mumbai reached the finals of IPL 3, and have maintained the core of the squad who got them there. They retained four players - the maximum allowed - and all four are leaders in their respective departments: Tendulkar's responsibility is to give the team a solid start, Kieron Pollard is in charge of accelerating in the middle and end overs, Lasith Malinga is the pace spearhead, while Harbhajan Singh leads the spinners.
Those four will be key, and Mumbai have added to their list of matchwinners: new signings Andrew Symonds and Rohit Sharma are destructive in the Twenty20 format, as is the lesser known Davy Jacobs. With those three joining Tendulkar, Pollard and Ambati Rayudu, the batting line-up looks formidable, and with the presence of several allrounders adding bowling options, Mumbai look like one of the most well-balanced teams in the tournament.
The stage could not have been better set for a Mumbai victory. India's World Cup win has had a particularly galvanising effect on the city which staged the final, and with Tendulkar owning most of the prestigious individual batting records in the game, all that's left in the nature of sentimental firsts, would be for him to succeed as a captain.
Key Players
Few bowlers have the ability to stop the flow of runs and make key strikes in the late overs that Lasith Malinga has. His mix of yorkers and slower balls has fetched him 33 wickets in two seasons with Mumbai, and with Clint McKay missing the season with an injury, he will have to shoulder the responsibility of carrying an attack that looks short of death bowlers.
Kieron Pollard was given a lot of the credit for taking the team to the finals in the last tournament, but it was Saurabh Tiwary and Ambati Rayudu who were the second and third highest scorers for Mumbai respectively. With Tiwary gone, Rayudu will need to be prolific in the middle order. He racked up the runs for Baroda in the Ranji season, and his conventional style of batting will add some solidity to a batting line-up that features the violent Pollard and Symonds.
Rohit Sharma will be expected to cover for the loss of Tiwary, if not produce more than he did. The $2mn price tag will be a lot to live up to, but Rohit has the added incentive of trying to get back into the Indian squad, after he was left out of the World Cup XV. He has been impressive in past editions, scoring runs at a quick pace and chipping in with wickets too.
Big name in
Andrew Symonds' inclusion in the Mumbai squad has caused as much of a stir because of his dynamism as a cricketer, as for the prospect of him playing alongside Harbhajan Singh, the man he accused of racially abusing him during India's tour of Australia in 2008-09. Symonds can be as destructive as Pollard, but there is no way of ascertaining what sort of form he will enter the IPL in, since he has not played professional cricket in nine months.
Big name out
Zaheer Khan was picked up by Bangalore in the auction, which means Mumbai will have to hope Munaf Patel's cutters and Dilhara Fernando's split-finger slower ball will be enough to support Malinga in the fast-bowling department. Dhawal Kulkarni has not quite kicked on from making the Indian Test squad for the tour of New Zealand back in 2009, while Abu Nechim is a fairly unknown quantity.
Below the radar
At $190,000, South African wicketkeeper-batsman Davy Jacobs was a bargain for Mumbai. He brought himself to the notice of IPL franchises with his performance for Warriors in the Champions League T20 in 2010, during which he top scored in his franchise's run to the final with 286 runs in six matches. With Sanath Jayasuriya and Shikhar Dhawan no longer a part of Mumbai Indians, Jacobs could find himself opening the batting with Tendulkar.
Last three seasons
Tendulkar missed half the first season with an injury; Harbhajan Singh led the team, until he was banned for an infamous altercation with Sreesanth, at which point Shaun Pollock took over. The distractions didn't help Mumbai, but it was their lack of quality foreign players that saw them miss out on the knockout stages. Jayasuriya scored 514 runs in 14 matches, but the sight of Luke Ronchi and Dominic Thornely filling up the overseas players' slots never inspired confidence.
In the second season, the opening pair of Jayasuriya and Tendulkar amassed plenty of runs between them, but the bowling, apart from Malinga, struggled. Zaheer Khan was only fit for six games, Mumbai were weak in terms of domestic players, and ended up finishing second-last in the table.
Last year's run to the finals was built on Tendulkar giving the team starts on a regular basis, and Rayudu, Tiwary and Pollard capitalising on them. Mumbai topped the league, hammered Royal Challengers Bangalore in the semi-finals, but then succumbed to nerves and some odd decision-making in the finals against Chennai Super Kings.
Dustin Silgardo is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo