Mumbai Indians suffered their seventh loss of the 2024 edition of the IPL and their campaign is on the verge of becoming dust despite the quality of personnel. The team hasn't come together as expected in the tournament and some of the selection calls have to take the blame because of their baffling nature. Monday's (April 22) clash against the Rajasthan Royals was a prime example of how wrong MI have been with their selections as they brought back Nehal Wadhera, the Punjab batter, who had a brilliant first season with the franchise last year and he continued from where he left off.
With Suryakumar Yadav unavailable for the first three games, Wadhera's Punjab teammate Naman Dhir got the opportunity. Even after four losses in the first six games, Mumbai Indians didn't go in with Wadhera, who made everyone sit up and take notice with a 100-metre six on his IPL debut last year against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). Wadhera has had a brilliant 12 months as apart from the IPL, he shone in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy as well smashing a 61* off 27 in the final in a winning cause for Punjab.
Despite all of that promise and form, Wadhera who struck at 145 last year, was benched for seven games. With the struggling bowling attack, MI finally pulled the plug on Romario Shepherd and brought in Nuwan Thushara which meant that they needed a pure batter and hence the opportunity opened for the 23-year-old left-hander.
Wadhera was slow to start off with Mumbai Indians losing three wickets inside the powerplay but recovered brilliantly to smash a 24-ball 49. Wadher smashed four sixes, including a couple off Yuzvendra Chahal and a one-handed off the bowling of Avesh Khan as his strokeplay and intent was on show and hence the question begs itself, why was he sitting out all this while.
But like everything else, the management would be better placed to answer this question but if they knew, they might have been in a less dire situation than they are currently. For Nehal however, it was a golden opportunity and he grabbed it with both hands.
