Mumbai Indians have been severely hit on the injury front with as many as 8 Indian players ruled out of the tournament with various injuries. Sachin Tendulkar is suffering from a toe injury which ruled him out of the ODI leg of the England tour. Rohit Sharma suffered a fracture on his right index finger during the first ODI while Munaf Patel suffered a suspected ankle injury during the final ODI at Cardiff.
The injury list of the beleaguered team also includes Suryakumar Yadav, Ali Mutaza, Dhawal Kulkarni, Aditya Tare and Pawan Suyal which has reduced their Indian contingent to the bare minimum of seven players. The team can add any other Indian player from their contract list if they wish so. Mumbai Indians could have been technically out of the tournament if they had suffered one more injury on the Indian front as a team needs to feature at least 7 Indian players in their playing XI.
Taking the seriousness of the situation into consideration and to ensure that the quality of the competition is not diluted, the technical board has allowed the Mumbai Indians to feature 5 overseas players in their playing XI.
Mumbai have also drafted in Andrew Symonds, Dilhara Fernando, R Sathish, Sarul Kanwar and Abu Nechim as the replacements for the injured players.
Harbhajan Singh is expected to lead the side in the absence of Sachin Tendulkar.
The Mumbai Indians will be up against defending IPL and CL T20 champions, Chennai Super Kings in their first match on the 24th at the M Chidambaram stadium, Chennai.
