The Mumbai Indian’s Champions League Twenty20 title defence may not start in the most ideal manner, with captain Rohit Sharma having been ruled out of the tournament. However, Head Coach John Wright believes Rohit’s absence will present an opportunity to one of the talented domestic cricketers to step up and contribute to the team’s cause.

“Rohit, will not be playing this tournament. We will be finalising the new captain in the next 24 hours. We had a faint hope that Rohit might be able to make it but, unfortunately that does not seem likely now, so we have got to make that decision in the next 24 hours. We have players who have done it before and have been very successful,” Wright said during the Mumbai Indians’ first media interaction after the team’s arrival in Raipur, where they will play the Qualifiers from September 13.

However, Mumbai Indians have shown in the past that adversity brings out the best in them. In 2011, the Mumbai Indians lifted the CLT20 trophy, which was their maiden triumph, despite five of their main stars having been sidelined due to fitness- related issues. Similarly, in 2013, the Mumbai Indians won CLT20 in the absence of key bowler, Lasith Malinga.

And during the 2014 Indian Premier League, Mumbai Indians made it to the IPL Playoffs despite losing their first five games of the season. Wright feels that the team can take a lot of heart from the IPL performance.

“We just took a little while to settle down. Coming back to India helped. We had a great record in Mumbai the year before. It was a matter of getting that first win and getting some momentum going. Certainly Lendl Simmons did a great job coming in for us last year. Just the confidence of getting that first win, and we knew that we would be tough to beat in Mumbai,” Wright said.

“We fought well. We would have liked to have won the competition having made the Playoffs but we didn’t. Still, there wouldn’t be a lot of teams to have fought back so well, the character we showed – by everyone – in getting back to the competition and getting to where we are right now, was a good achievement. We have got to capitalise on this opportunity, to be honest.”

And the team seems to have the wherewithal to go all the way during CLT20. While Wright stressed that the team is only focussing on the Qualifiers at this stage, Mumbai Indians appear to be a solid unit. In Lendl Simmons, they have a man in form. In Malinga and Harbhajan Singh, they have two top-class bowlers with loads of variations. And in Kieron Pollard and Corey Anderson, the Mumbai Indians possess the world’s two best all-rounders.

If all the big players put in a little extra effort than usual, they can surely make up for Rohit’s absence and, lead Mumbai Indians to their third CLT20 triumph.