A dejected Hardik Pandya acknowledged that the poor quality of cricket played by the Mumbai Indians significantly contributed to their disappointing performance in the 2024 IPL season, culminating in their second last-place finish in three years. The five-time champions had previously finished last in 2022 as well.
Pandya's return to the Mumbai Indians' setup was met with high expectations, but under his leadership, the team managed to secure only four wins out of 14 matches. "It was quite difficult. We did not play good quality cricket, which eventually cost us the whole season," Pandya stated following MI's 18-run loss to the Lucknow Super Giants.
"It's a professional world. We have to always come out and put our best foot forward. But yes, as a group, we could not play quality cricket or smart cricket," he added. As the season comes to a close, Pandya plans to analyze what went wrong. "Too early to point out what went wrong. The whole season kind of went wrong. We can pass this game as another one that went wrong."
Similarly, LSG skipper KL Rahul, whose team also missed the playoffs, expressed his disappointment. "Very disappointing. At the start of the season, I felt we had a very strong season and most bases covered. A couple of injuries happened, but the guys who went away dented us a little bit," Rahul remarked, likely referring to the absence of the country's fastest bowler, Mayank Yadav.
"We didn't play well enough collectively and couldn't come together as much as we wanted to. Today was the kind of game we wanted to play more when the bowlers and batters both come together," he continued.
Rahul, who is not part of the Indian squad for the upcoming T20 World Cup, was non-committal about his batting position in future T20 matches. "Maybe, maybe not, there's not much T20 cricket coming up [for me] now," he said when asked if he would consider batting in the middle order. "It depends on where I stand and what I need to do to get back in the team. I'll think about what the team needs," he added.
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(With PTI inputs)