The defending champions Mumbai Indians (MI) did not have a great game against the last year’s finalists Delhi Capitals (DC) as the Delhi-based franchise defeated them by 6 wickets and chased their target of 138 runs with 5 balls to spare in the 13th match of IPL 2021.
Even after losing opener Quinton de Kock early, skipper Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav steadied the ship and gave their team a good start, but unfortunately, the middle order could not capitalize on that as the five-time champions could only muster 137 runs.
The MI middle order that includes some big names like Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Kieron Pollard failed to get going as their scores in the scorecard read 0,1 and 2 respectively.
This is not the first time the all-rounder Hardik Pandya, who plays as a batsman, has not been able to contribute to his team. Even former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan pointed out the issue as he thinks Hardik not getting runs will hurt MI.
“If hardik isn’t bowling and not scoring runs lately will hurt #Mi badly. He needs to show some responsibility as a batter,” Pathan wrote on Twitter.
If hardik isn’t bowling and not scoring runs lately will hurt #Mi badly. He needs to show some responsibility as a batter.
— Irfan Pathan (@IrfanPathan) April 20, 2021
MI coach Mahela Jayawardena had explained that the all-rounder is not bowling due to a niggle Pandya picked up in the last ODI game against England and will start bowling once he is comfortable.
After losing to DC, the Mumbai-based franchise will take on KL Rahul’s Punjab Kings (PBKS) on Friday (23 April) at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.
