That completes a pair of back-to-back losses for the Mumbai Indians against the UP Warriorz. In a game that saw runs being scored mostly freely, it was Mumbai’s opening conundrums that cost them the game yet again. Read our analysis here.
😵💫 Mumbai’s opening carousel is costing them games & confidence!
While other departments are performing well and different players are stepping up, the Mumbai Indians have struggled to establish an opening partnership and capitalise on the batting powerplay.
Five openers across five games. That’s where the Mumbai Indians are at.
After Game 4, it looked certain that G Kamalini would secure at least one opening slot. That has definitely not been the case.
Tonight saw Hayley Matthews return to the XI and at the top of the order. Instead of Kamalini, it was S Sajana who opened along with Matthews. By the time the third over rolled around, it felt like MI had finally worked out the combination. Matthews looked settled, and Sajana had tonked a couple of boundaries.
But that relief was short-lived. Kranti Gaud dismissed Sajana with a full ball, plumb LBW. Shortly after, Meg Lanning brought on Sophie Ecclestone’s left-arm spin against Matthews—a horrible matchup for Hayley. She averages just 22 and strikes at a mere 103 against the bowling type, having been dismissed 44 times in 141 innings against left-arm spin.
It worked. Matthews, who hasn’t done much this season or played much cricket leading in, was dismissed. The onus once again fell on Mumbai’s middle order to rebuild from scratch. All Mumbai could manage from the powerplay was 38 runs for the loss of 2 wickets.
Across five matches now, the powerplay overs have consistently failed to inspire. Mumbai’s best powerplay has been just 48—the worst in the tournament so far. They strike at just 105.5, the lowest in the powerplay for any team this year.
And realistically, this problem at the top is what has cost them games—including tonight. Because the rest of the order is in form. Everyone from the middle order has scored runs. When the Amanjot Kaur experiment worked decently enough last time, why would you go ahead and displace not one but both your openers?
Mumbai aren’t just failing to build chemistry and synergy between openers—they’re tinkering with the order constantly, likely denting the confidence of a young G Kamalini, who was obviously going to need time settling into the role.
You can’t establish partnerships if you don’t give batters a chance to establish themselves. The Mumbai Indians are learning that the hard way.
Data from Women’s T20 Batting App using Himanish Ganjoo’s T20 cricket BBB database up until October 2025, Arnav Jain’s fielding toolkit, Cricmetric, Cricket By JB’s WPL analyses & the Broadcast.
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