Hardik Pandya-led Mumbai Indians suffered a 9-wicket defeat during the IPL 2024 match against Rajasthan Royals on April 22 at Sawai Mansingh Indoor Stadium.
Mumbai Indians have won only three out of 8 matches they played in the IPL 2024 season so far and secured 7th position in the points table. On this occasion, Hardik Pandya opened on their side’s defeat against Rajasthan Royals on Monday clash.
“We put ourselves in trouble early on. The way Tilak and Nehal batted – that was fantastic. I don’t think that when we lost a couple of wickets early we thought we would even reach 180. We didn’t finish well and that’s why we were 10-15 runs short.”
“We had to keep it within the stumps (while bowling). Early on in the powerplay, we gave a lot of width and I don’t think it was our best day in the field as well. Overall, we did not put the right foot in the park and eventually, they outplayed us.”
“After the game, it’s not the right time to go to the players, everyone is professional, they know their roles. What we can do is learn from this game and the mistakes which we have made, rectify it, and make sure that we don’t make it. Progression is very important.”
“Within the team, individually, we will have to accept our flaws and maybe work on those. I don’t believe much in chip and chop, I like to back players and the focus would always be to play good cricket, sticking to our plans and making sure that we don’t make the basic errors. Cricket is simple, as long as we keep it simple, it’s nice,” said Hardik Pandya.
Coming to the match, Mumbai Indians won the toss and opted to bat where MI opener Rohit Sharma was sent back to the dugout by Trent Boult in the first over of the match.
Sandeep Sharma bagged wickets of Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav for 0 and 10 runs. MI scored only 45 runs losing three wickets by the end of power play.
With MI struggling to score runs, Mohammad Nabi scored 23 runs in 17 deliveries helping the side to stabilize the score before being dismissed by Chahal.
They scored only 54 runs losing four wickets in the game. Tilak Varma and Nehal Wadhera joined hands to score 50+ partnership runs. Mumbai Indians scored 131/4 by the end of 15 overs at Jaipur.
Tilak Varma went on to score 65 runs in 45 deliveries before being dismissed by Sandeep Sharma. On the other hand, Nehal Wadhera was dismissed by Trent Boult for 49 runs.
With the dismissal of Hardik Pandya for 10 runs, Sandeep Sharma went on to bag the wickets of Tim David and Gerald Coetzee picking a five-wicket haul with an economy of 4.50. Finally, Mumbai Indians scored 179 runs losing 9 wickets by the end of 20 overs.
With the target of 180 runs, Rajasthan Royals openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Jos Buttler scored a joined partnership to score 61 runs by the end of the powerplay.
The rain interrupted the match and resumed the match where Jos Buttler scored 35 runs against 25 deliveries before being dismissed by Piyush Chawla.
Sanju Samson joined a partnership with Yashasvi Jaiswal to score 100+ runs. Yashasvi Jaiswal smashed 100 runs on 59 deliveries. Rajasthan Royals scored 183 and won the match by 9 wickets.
