MI finished the season with only four wins in 14 league matches.
Mumbai Indians (MI) concluded their IPL 2026 campaign with a 30-run defeat against Rajasthan Royals (RR) at the Wankhede Stadium on Saturday (May 23).
Invited to bat first, the Royals racked up 205/8 in their allotted 20 overs. After Yashasvi Jaiswal’s 17-ball 27 at the top of the order, Dhruv Jurel anchored the innings with a solid 38 off 26 balls while Dasun Shanaka chipped in with a quickfire 29 off 15 deliveries.
Jofra Archer smashed a blistering 32 off 15 balls, alongside unbeaten cameos from Ravindra Jadeja (19* off 11) and Nandre Burger (10* off 3), to push RR past the 200-run mark.
Despite a resilient 60 off 42 balls from Suryakumar Yadav, MI’s innings was restricted to 175/9. Archer starred with the ball for RR with three scalps, while Brijesh Sharma, Yash Raj Punja and Nandre Burger picked up two wickets each.
With this outcome, Mumbai Indians officially finished the IPL 2026 in ninth place on the points table, managing only four wins in their 14 league matches.
Speaking after the game, MI skipper Hardik Pandya acknowledged that they conceded 10-15 runs more with the ball and lost too many wickets in the powerplay while chasing the target.
“I think 10-15 runs (more we gave with the ball). It was quite hot as well, bowled did a pretty good job. It was chaseable, we just lost a lot of wickets in powerplay and then it was always a catch up game,” Hardik said at the post-match presentation.
He noted the pitch played consistently across both innings and was good for batting if players played proper cricketing shots.
“When I went to bat it felt like it was coming on nicely. It played similar in both innings (the pitch). It was coming on the bat. Just had to hold your shape and play good cricketing shots,” Hardik added.
The captain identified that conceding 73 runs in the final 5 overs of the first innings was the primary reason for the loss.
“Death overs are always difficult and I always believe that if you can stop 1-2 boundaries in that 5-over bracket, you'll always be 12-15 runs short. Unfortunately we could not do that. 73 in the last 5 cost us the game as well,” he stated.
Hardik Pandya dismissed any injury concerns regarding his stretching, joking about his high workload as an all-rounder and captain.
“Everything is fine (when asked about the stretching he was doing). I bat, I bowl, I field, I skip, so it's okay, it's fair for me to have a game where I just batted and enjoyed myself,” he concluded.