Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya admitted they were 20 runs short of a par score after suffering a seven-wicket loss against Punjab Kings at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium, Jaipur in the ongoing IPL 2025 on Monday.
MI posted 184 runs on the board after they were put into bat by PBKS captain Shreyas Iyer. Suryakumar Yadav top-scored with 57 runs off 39 balls but the other batters failed to convert their starts into substantial scores.
None of the other batters could go past the 30-run mark, and four batsmen were dismissed in the 20s.
On the other hand, Priyansh Arya and Josh Inglis scored 62 and 73 runs respectively to help their team get over the line in the run-chase of 185 and secure their top-two position in the points table.
Hardik Pandya said after the loss, “The way the wicket played, we were definitely 20 runs short. That happens, we’ve been playing really good cricket, this was one of the days where we really couldn’t play our best cricket and that costed us. IPL is like that, this franchisee has won five trophies, it has always been tough.”
He added, “Anytime if you take the leg off the accelerator, the other teams are also very keen to win the games. The message would be simple, this was just a blip, learn from this and look forward for the knockouts. It’s too fresh, we’ll identify later but as an overall batting unit, we were definitely 20 runs short. We could have capitalised either in the start or in the middle, we’ll figure it out post the game.”
Speaking on the team’s plan for the Eliminator contest, Pandya said, “Overall, play good cricket, bat well, bowl well, work on the plans, see what is the template which will work as a batting group. Bowlers have been doing really well throughout the season. Batting, we’ll figure out what is the right template on right tracks and if we bat first, what is the pace we want to bat. Couple of things which we need to identify, but I don’t think much panic. We knew what was at stake. Looking forward for the Eliminator.”
MI will face either the Gujarat Titans or the Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the Eliminator at Chandigarh on Friday.
