The Players.

MI Star Bowler Lasith Malinga

During the player auction in 2008, the Mumbai Indians successfully bid for 7 players, including two members of the Indian Twenty-20 World cup winning side in Harbhajan Singh, Robin Uthappa. Sanath Jayasuriya, Lasith Malinga, Luke Ronchi, Dilhara Fernando and Shaun Pollock were other cricketers who were successfully bid for by the franchise.

Outside of the player auction, the franchise also signed up Ajinkya Rahane and Abhishek Nayar (from Mumbai), Yogesh Takawale (WK-Batsman from Maharashtra) and Pinal Shah (WK-Batsman from Baroda).^[14] Saurabh Tiwary and Manish Pandey, the members of the U-19 world-cup winning team were the random picks drafted in during the BCCI held second auction. Dominic Thornely was also signed by the Mumbai Indians for a sum of $30,000. André Nel the South African fast bowler was signed on in the place of Dwayne Bravo who left the tournament early.

In the 2009 player auction,the Mumbai Indians signed up South African player, JP Duminy for $950,000. He was the third most expensive pick after Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff (both signed up for $1.55m by Bangalore Royal Challengers and Chennai Super Kings respectively). In addition Kyle Mills and Mohammad Ashraful for $ 150,000 and $ 75,000 respectively were bought by MI management. The team also signed Graham Napier and Ryan McLaren at the pre-auction signings.

MI Star Batsman K.Pollard

In the IPL 2010 Mumbai Indians bought West Indian all-rounder Kieron Pollard for $750,000 ($2,750,000) after a silent tie-breaker with Chennai Super Kings, Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Kolkata Knight Riders.as he impressed everyone with his performances at Big Bash andChampions League.

In 2011, as two new teams were added to the IPL, the IPL Governing Council declared that each franchise could retain a maximum of four players of their squad, only three of whom can be Indian players, and the rest of the international players would be put in the mega-auction. The Mumbai franchise, keen to have the same set of core players, retained captain Sachin Tendulkar, Vice-Captain Harbhajan Singh, All-Rounder Kieron Pollard and Fast Bowler Lasith Malinga for a total of $4.5 million. The retention left them with the power of spending only $4.5 million at the mega-auction. At the auction, they purchased Rohit Sharma as one of the costliest player in the auction along with Munaf Patel, Andrew Symonds, Aiden Blizzard, a hard-hitting Australian batsman and James Franklin, an all rounder from New Zealand.

Sachin Tendulkar retired in 2013.

At the 2012 IPL player auction, Mumbai Indians bought South Africans Richard Levi and Robin Peterson for $50,000 and $100,000 respectively, Australian fast bowler Mitchell Johnson for $300,000, Indian fast bowler R. P. Singh for $ 600,000 and Sri Lankan all-rounder Thisara Perera for $ 650,000.

After the auctions, Mumbai Indians managed to get South African explosive opener Richard Levi, who shot into limelight after hitting the fastest century in T20 international cricket and hitting a record 13 sixes, after a bidding war with Pune Warriors India. Richard Levi was brought in as a replacement for Andrew Symonds, who retired from all forms of the game citing family reasons. Sachin Tendulkar stepped down as Mumbai Indians captain ahead of the IPL 2012 season-opener against Chennai.

Million-Dollar Man

At the 2012 IPL player auction, Former Australian Captain Ricky Ponting was purchased by Mumbai Indians for $400,000 and he became the new captain for sixth edition of IPL. Also at the auction, the Million Dollar Baby Glenn Maxwell was purchased by Mumbai Indians. Also Philip Hughes, Nathan Coulter - Nile, Jacob Oram was purchased by MI Management.

Identity.

Team name, motto and logo

The Mumbai Indians were the most watched team on television in the first season of the IPL, totaling to 239 million viewers.After posting a revenue of 69 crore and expenditure of 85 crore, the first season left the owners with net loss of INR 16 crore and were expected to break even in the 2009 season.

The Mumbai Franchise named the Team as Mumbai Indians as per the wish of Sachin, their Iconic Player and Owners Ambanis which are the Biggest Business House of India to represent their team as team for the People of India as Sachin is their God of Cricket and this team belongs to every Indian.

The motto of the team is "Duniya Hila Denge Hum", which translates to We will rock the world.The first anthem of Mumbai Indian was based on this motto, wherein the Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan was roped in for a promotional video campaign.^[11]

The team logo has the Sudarshana Chakra with the team's name engraved in it.

Mumbai Indians Jersey

Jersey colors

The team's primary color is blue with golden stripes on either sides of the jersey. The team colours was almost the same in 2008 and 2009, with Idea as the principal sponsor, except for the colour shade and additional sponsors. In 2010, a new kit with golden stripes was unveiled. In 2011, kit used in 2010 is being used with Hero Honda as the main sponsor. The 2011 jersey also has three gold stripes going towards the back on the side of the jersey for the new players in the team. The kit manufacturer is Adidas.

Theme song

The current theme song of the Mumbai Indians is the famous Ala Re. However, after every boundary or a wicket by the team, a music titled "Akkha Mumbai Khelega" is always played by the stadium disc jockey.

Main Theme

Rise of Mumbai.

At the 2010 players auction, Mumbai Indians bought Trinidadian all-rounder Kieron Pollard for $750,000 following a secret tie-breaker. After the auction, they signed up ten uncapped Indian players out whom seven were former ICL players. Former India cricketer Robin Singh was named as the head coach of the team as Pollock took up the role of bowling coach. Mumbai had to shift their home venue to Brabourne Stadium for the season since the Wankhede was undergoing renovation to host the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup. Mumbai won seven of their first eight games to take the top spot in the points table. Their success was mainly due to the efforts of Tendulkar, Malinga, Harbhajan, Ambati Rayudu and Saurabh Tiwary. They won three of the remaining six league games and finished with 20 points from 14 games at the top of the points table. They beat the Royal Challengers Bangalore by 35 runs in the semifinal thanks to Pollard's all-round efforts (33* from 13 balls, and 3/17). At the final, they were defeated by the Chennai Super Kings by 22 runs. The Mumbai team management was criticised for the "strategic errors" during the final such as sending Abhishek Nayar and Harbhajan at batting positions 3 and 4 respectively while Duminy and Pollard were sent at 7 and 8. Mumbai skipper Sachin Tendulkar, who scored 618 runs at an average of 47.53 and strike rate of 132.6, won the Orange Cap for scoring most runs in the season. Mumbai qualified for the2010 Champions League Twenty20 where they were eliminated in the group stage with two wins and two defeats in four matches.

Champions' 2013

In 2011, with the addition of two new teams to the IPL, the IPL Governing Council declared that each franchise could retain a maximum of four players of their 2010 squad, and the rest of the international players would be auctioned. Mumbai Indians retained Tendulkar, Harbhajan, Pollard and Malinga for a sum of $4.5 million. This retention left the franchise with the power of spending $4.5 million at the auction where they purchased Indian batsman Rohit Sharma for $2 million, former Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds for $850,000, and pacer Munaf Patel for $700,000. Mumbai won eight of their first ten league games following which they suffered a loss of form that led to three consecutive defeats and a last-ball win in their last league match. They finished third on the points table with 18 points from 14 games and qualified for the Eliminator. The Eliminator was played at the Wankhede where Mumbai faced the Kolkata Knight Riders. After winning the toss and electing to bowl first, Mumbai restricted Kolkata to 147 in their 20 overs. Mumbai chased down the target with the loss of six wickets and four balls to spare. Munaf Patel won the Man of the Match for his bowling figures of 3/27. With this win, Mumbai qualified for the Qualifying final against Royal Challengers Bangalore, the winner of which will play the Super Kings in the final. Mumbai skipper Tendulkar won the toss once again and put their opposition into bat who set Mumbai a target of 186. Mumbai kept losing wickets at regular intervals from the start of their innings and could score only 142/8, falling short by 43 runs. The top two leading wicket-takers of the season were Mumbai Indians pacers Lasith Malinga and  Patel with 28 and 22 wickets respectively.

Celebrating the win

                                                            

The Struggle

The IPL named four players as icon players for their respective city franchises which makes the player unavailable to play for any team other than their city team. Sachin Tendulkar was named Mumbai's icon player. The icon player was also entitled to earn 15% more than the next-best paid player in their team. At the first player auctions for the inaugural IPL season conducted in February 2008, the Mumbai franchise bought several star international cricketers such as Sanath Jayasuriya, Harbhajan Singh, Shaun Pollock, Lasith Malinga and Robin Uthappa.The franchise named Tendulkar as the captain of the team and appointed former India cricketer Lalchand Rajput as the head coach. However, Tendulkar was injured before the start of the 2008 season due to which Harbhajan Singh took over as the captain in the initial stage of the season. The team got off to a bad start in the season losing their first four games by comprehensive margins. Their first match was a five-wicket defeat to the Royal Challengers Bangalore on 20 April 2008 at the Wankhede. Their stand-in captain, Harbhajan, was suspended from the tournament for reportedly slapping Sreesanth during Mumbai's league match against Kings XI Punjab. After Harbhajan's suspension, Shaun Pollock assumed the leadership duties until Tendulkar's return on May 24. Under Pollock's captaincy, Mumbai won six out of their next six games which left them needing to win two more out of the remaining four matches to qualify for the semifinals. Mumbai suffered three last-over defeats, including two off the last ball, before winning their last league match. They finished fifth in the points table with 7 wins and 7 losses, missing out on a semifinal spot by just one point.

The 2009 season was played in South Africa as it coincided with multi-phase 2009 Indian general elections due to which the Government of India refused to commit the Indian paramilitary forces to provide security for the IPL. Before the start of the season, Mumbai Indians traded Robin Uthappa for Zaheer Khan with Royal Challengers Bangalore, and Ashish Nehra for Shikhar Dhawan with the Delhi Daredevils. Shaun Pollock retired after the first season and became the head coach of the team. Lasith Malinga, who missed the previous season due to an injury, returned to the team. At the player auction, Mumbai bought South African batsman JP Duminy to strengthen their batting department. After winning their opening match against the Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai struggled to put up consistent performances during the season. They relied heavily on Duminy and Tendulkar's batting, and Malinga's bowling along with minimal contributions from other players. With only five wins from 14 matches, Mumbai finished on seventh place in the league table.

The Beginning...

The Mumbai Indians (Marathi: मुंबई इंडियन्स) are a franchise cricket team representing the city of Mumbai in the Indian Premier League (IPL). The team is one of the eight founding members of the IPL in 2008. They are one of the main teams in the city, together with clubs like the Mumbai cricket team and football club Mumbai FC. The franchise is owned by India's biggest conglomerate, Reliance Industries, through its 100% subsidiary IndiaWin Sports. The primary home ground of the Mumbai Indians is the Wankhede Stadium.

The Mumbai Indians are currently captained by Rohit Sharma, and coached by John Wright. They won the 2011 Champions League Twenty20 after beating IPL rivals Royal Challengers Bangalore by 31 runs in the final. The team won its first IPL title, in 2013, by defeating Chennai Super Kings by 23 runs in the finals played at Kolkata, and then bowled out the Rajasthan Royals by 33 runs to win its second Champions League Twenty20 title. Rohit Sharma is the leading run-getter of the team while Lasith Malinga is the leading wicket-taker.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced in September 2007 the establishment of the Indian Premier League, a Twenty20 competition to be started in 2008. In January 2008, the BCCI unveiled the owners of eight city-based franchises. The Mumbai franchise was sold to the Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) for $111.9 million, making it the most expensive team in the league. RIL, owned by Mukesh Ambani, acquired the rights to the franchise for a period of 10 years. The franchise was eventually named "Mumbai Indians".