By Admin 
Mumbai Indians have also lost their last league match in IPL 2026. Rajasthan Royals defeated them by 30 runs and made it to the playoffs. Under the captaincy of Hardik Pandya, the Mumbai team failed to get a ticket for the playoffs for the second time in the last 3 seasons. After the defeat against Rajasthan, captain Hardik Pandya blamed both bowling and batting for the defeat.
In this match played at Wankhede Stadium, Rajasthan team batted first and scored 205 runs. Hardik said that his team’s bowlers gave away 73 runs in the last 5 overs, which made a big difference in the match. Captain Hardik admitted that the target of 206 could have been chased, but the mistakes made in batting cost the MI team dearly.
Blame on bowlers
After the defeat against Rajasthan, Hardik Pandya said – We probably gave away 10-15 more runs in bowling. Bowling in death overs is not easy. If you are able to hit 1-2 boundaries in the last five overs, then the opposing team will be able to score 12-15 runs less. We could not do this and conceding 73 runs in the last 5 overs also proved to be detrimental for us.
It is not wrong to say that Joffra Archer’s inning of 32 runs in 15 balls overshadowed the Mumbai batsmen. Archer had hit 3 sixes in this short innings. Ravindra Jadeja also scored 19 runs in 11 balls.
Made a mistake in batting also
Hardik admitted that the target of 206 was not impossible to chase. He said – This score could have been chased, but we lost many wickets in the powerplay. When I went to bat, the ball was coming onto the bat nicely. We just needed to hang in there and play good shots.
The performance of Mumbai Indians was disappointing in IPL 2026. In the tournament, Mumbai team could register only four wins after playing 14 matches. Let us tell you that Mumbai has never become champion after 2020. His wait for his sixth trophy has been going on for 6 years.
Also read:
Rajasthan in playoffs for seventh time, beat Mumbai by 30 runs; Punjab and Kolkata both out
‘Shameful’ record in Rohit Sharma’s name, out on zero most number of times in IPL; See top-5 list