---
type: story
title: "Rohit Sharma's Five Titles: What Mumbai Indians Built"
description: >
  From 2013 to 2020, Mumbai Indians won the IPL five times. Rohit Sharma captained
  all five. The pattern across those titles is not coincidence — it is a repeatable
  franchise system, visible in the data.
tags:
  - IPL
  - team
  - captaincy
  - history
  - records
status: active
last_verified: 2026-06-25
timestamp: 2026-06-25
license: CC-BY-4.0
source_system: CricketStudio
source_boundary: public_open_data
canonical_page: https://okf.cricketstudio.ai/stories/rohit-five-titles-mi-blueprint/
resource: https://okf.cricketstudio.ai/stories/rohit-five-titles-mi-blueprint/
entity_id: cricketstudio:story:rohit-five-titles-mi-blueprint
dataset_version: 2026-06-11
provenance:
  source: >
    IPL champion records: public domain, confirmed via Cricsheet CC BY 3.0 match results.
    MI title years (2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020) from Cricsheet CC BY 3.0.
    Rohit captaincy record: public domain, verified through Cricsheet data.
  confidence: high
  notes: >
    Title years are from public domain IPL records, corroborated by Cricsheet CC BY 3.0.
    MI's internal development system and auction philosophy are well-documented
    but not ball-by-ball data — framed as observed patterns, not proprietary claims.
related:
  - ../dossier/ipl-most-titles-by-team.md
  - ../dossier/ipl-champions-history.md
  - ../dossier/best-ipl-captain-all-time.md
  - ../dossier/kohli-vs-rohit-ipl-career.md
---

# Rohit Sharma's Five Titles: What Mumbai Indians Built

## The Question Nobody Asked

MI won in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2020. [Rohit](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/players/rohit-sharma) captained all five. What do those five winning campaigns have in common that the seven non-title seasons do not?

## What the Data Says

**Mumbai Indians IPL title record:**

| Year | Result |
|------|--------|
| 2013 | **Champions** |
| 2014 | Non-final |
| 2015 | **Champions** |
| 2016 | Non-final |
| 2017 | **Champions** |
| 2018 | Non-final |
| 2019 | **Champions** |
| 2020 | **Champions** |
| 2021 | Non-final |
| 2022 | Non-final |
| 2023 | Non-final |
| 2024 | Non-final |
| 2025 | Non-final |
| 2026 | Non-final (group stage, NRR -0.712) |

*(Source: Cricsheet CC BY 3.0 match results + CricketStudio IPL dataset)*

Five titles in eight seasons (2013–2020). No titles in the six seasons since.

**What the five-title window shows:**

The five winning campaigns shared observable structural patterns that MI's post-2020 teams have struggled to maintain:

1. **Death bowling control.** In all five title seasons, MI's death-over economy was among the competition's best. Malinga (2013, 2015, 2017), [Bumrah](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/players/jasprit-bumrah) (2017, 2019, 2020), and Pattinson/Boult (2020) gave MI a death bowling rotation that teams couldn't plan against.

2. **Powerplay batting with patience.** [Rohit](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/players/rohit-sharma) himself was the model — a powerplay opener who scored at a strong rate but also absorbed pressure without panic-hitting. Quinton de Kock brought similar stability in the post-2018 era.

3. **Match-winner at 7–8.** Kieron Pollard's career at MI (2010–2021) defined what a death-overs batter at position 7 could look like. The Pollard slot was the structural advantage that made MI's middle order unpredictable.

For MI's full match-level data across 2013–2020 titles: [players.cricketstudio.ai/leagues/ipl](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/leagues/ipl)

## The Wow

Five titles. Three in alternating years (2013, 2015, 2017). Then two in a row (2019, 2020).

The alternating-year pattern suggested something structural about how MI reset and reloaded — they would win, then absorb the key-player losses that title teams face at auction, then rebuild, then win again.

The 2019–2020 back-to-back was different. MI became the first team to win consecutive IPL titles. They did it with essentially the same core: [Rohit](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/players/rohit-sharma), de Kock, Pollard, Hardik, [Bumrah](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/players/jasprit-bumrah).

CSK and MI are the only teams with 5 IPL titles each as of the start of the post-2020 era. MI have not added a sixth since 2020. The question the data can't answer is whether the system was Rohit, or whether it was the specific combination of players who happened to be at MI during that era.

## What It Doesn't Say

This story describes observed patterns across MI's five title campaigns, not a proven formula. MI's auction philosophy, development program, and internal coaching are well-known publicly but are franchise decisions, not data available in the Cricsheet record. The structural patterns described are inferred from match-level outcomes.

The six-season drought since 2020 does not mean MI's system failed — T20 franchise cricket has enormous variance. It may mean their player cycle reset. IPL 2026 shows MI at NRR -0.712, finishing 10th of 10 teams — a very different position from their 2013–2020 peak.

Rohit's captaincy is one of several factors across those five wins. Attributing the titles entirely to captaincy strategy overstates what the data shows.

## Related Concepts

- [IPL Most Titles by Team](../dossier/ipl-most-titles-by-team.md)
- [IPL Champions History](../dossier/ipl-champions-history.md)
- [Best IPL Captain All-Time](../dossier/best-ipl-captain-all-time.md)
- [Kohli vs Rohit IPL Career](../dossier/kohli-vs-rohit-ipl-career.md)
