How Rajasthan Royals have solved the Mumbai Indians puzzle

The 14th edition of Indian Premier League is upon us, and the big question is 'can any team stop the Mumbai Indians juggernaut?' Mumbai Indians are on a streak of successive title wins and are looking well set to create history by becoming the first-side ever to achieve a hat-trick of IPL trophies. They are comfortably the best side of the last two seasons, winning nearly 69% percentage of their games, well ahead of the second-placed Delhi Capitals (58%).

The one side which has been Mumbai's bugbear during their successful recent period has been Rajasthan Royals. Since coming back to the fold in 2018, the Jaipur-based franchise have got the better of Mumbai Indians in five of the six head-to-head contests and is the only side to have a positive win-loss record against the Mumbai Indians in this period.

MI vs opposition teams since 2018

How have the Royals managed to find a solution to the Mumbai puzzle?

Team dynamics

It is interesting to note that in all the six Royals-Mumbai encounters in the last three seasons, Mumbai batted first which has helped Royals in a big way. Mumbai has a lower win percentage when they have set a target while the Royals have a highly skewed win-loss record when they chase compared to batting first (win% of 52 in chases to 29.41 when setting a target) in this period.

Royals' better chasing record can be credited to their superior batting depth thanks to their overseas contingent over a bowling attack dominated by relatively low-profile domestic names. In the five wins against Mumbai Indians since 2018, Royals have played the overseas combination of three overseas batters plus a pacer, namely Jofra Archer. In Royals' only loss to Mumbai in IPL 2020, Royals played a 2-2 combination with Tom Curran sharing fast bowling duties alongside Archer with the other two spots taken up by Jos Buttler and Steven Smith.

Mumbai start off well, lose momentum midway

Mumbai had the better of the initial exchanges in their batting innings against Royals and looked well placed at the halfway mark for big final flourishes. They never lost more than one wicket in the first ten overs and their lowest score after ten overs in these games was 81. Royals' fast bowlers managed regular strikes in the period of 11-16 overs which sucked out whatever momentum Mumbai gained in their first half of the innings.

Across their five defeats against Royals in the last three seasons, Mumbai have lost 14 wickets in the overs 11-16 phase, scoring at just 6.47 per over. The collapses meant by the time the explosive Mumbai Indians trio of finishers in Kieron Pollard and the Pandya brothers arrived at the middle, they didn't have any momentum to feed off to start their innings.

The Jofra Archer 'X-factor'

Archer is one of the best bowlers going around in the T20 circuit for the last few years and no other opponent has borne the brunt of his pace more than the Mumbai Indians. In six games against them, Archer has scalped 12 wickets at 13.67 at an economy under seven per over. While Archer hasn't been as effective with the new ball against Mumbai (1/51 in seven Powerplay overs) as he has been in IPL in general (average of 15.88 and economy rate of 5.08), Royals saved his overs for the second half of the innings to generate favourable matchups and targeting Mumbai Indians finishers' batting weakness.

Royals would often bring in Archer for an over in the middle as an enforcer to break partnerships