Are prophetically named Mumbai Indians cricketers scripting victories?

By K.R. Nayar 
From Mumbai 

When cricketers live up to their names, the team they play for win matches and could potentially emerge as contenders for the championship. Mumbai Indians’ Rohit Sharma, Trent Boult, and Suryakumar Yadav have done just that. In their last encounter, they beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by seven wickets to register their fourth straight win. As a result, Mumbai—once close to the bottom of the table—have now risen to third place.

 

While walking through the crowd en route to the press box, most Mumbai fans ahead of you are likely wearing the Rohit No. 45 jersey.  One wonders how this cricketer, whose well-timed hits for sixes that makes him a hit among fans, got named Ro-hit. Did his parents have a premonition? Rohit overtook his team’s batting coach Kieron Pollard as the player to hit most sixes for Mumbai Indians, taking his tally to 260 sixes - two more than his coach.

 

Rohit Sharma breaks his coach Kieron Pollard's IPL record 

When Suryakumar Yadav bats, one is often forced to look skywards as some of his sixes shoot towards the sky and land in the crowd. Was it mere coincidence, or was there foresight in naming him such that his initials would form ‘SKY’ ? These two batsmen seem born to entertain. Rohit scored 70 off 46 balls with eight boundaries and three sixes, while Yadav made a blistering 40 off 19 balls, including five boundaries and two sixes. It now seems no surprise that Mumbai defeated both Chennai Super Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad with identical 26 balls to spare—thanks largely to the brilliance of these two.

 

Trent Boult, the Player of the Match, also lived up to his name, delivering a deadly spell of 4 for 26 (which included six yorkers in an over) to restrict Hyderabad to just 143 for 8 in 20 overs. He grew up to become a pacer who could be easily nicknamed ‘Lighting Bolt’ and even ‘Thunder Boult’ . I first heard of him through Dayle Hadlee, the older brother of Richard Hadlee, who had coached Boult in his early days. Back in 2008, during an interview at the ICC Academy in Dubai, Dayle—then head coach—told me to keep an eye on a promising pacer named Boult, predicting he could become one of the world’s best.

 

Mumbai’s biggest advantage is the presence of match-winners who, if they fire on a given day, leave little chance for the opposition. Be it Rohit, Suryakumar, Boult, Jasprit Bumrah, or Hardik Pandya—if it’s their day, victory is almost assured.

 

Jasprit Bumrah equals coach Lasith Malinga's IPL record 

Incidentally, Bumrah has now equaled their bowling coach Lasith Malinga’s record for most wickets for Mumbai Indians, with 170 scalps. It’s a rare moment where both, the team’s star batsman (Rohit) and star bowler (Bumrah), have either broken or matched the record set by their coaches—on the same day. This is indeed special.

 

It would be no surprise if Mumbai notch their fifth consecutive win on April 27, when they face Lucknow Super Giants on their home ground, the Wankhede Stadium.