After losing the MI vs KKR game, Mumbai Indians also lost their hopes of playing in the finals. It’s a real shame that the team tied with Chennai for the most IPL trophies is out of the playoffs race.
Like every match, captain Hardik Pandya made some big mistakes in MI vs KKR. However, apart from his wrong decisions, some other factors also played some role in MI’s embarrassing defeat.
Let’s see what were the key reasons behind Mumbai Indian’s defeat against Kolkata Knight Riders.
Hardik Pandya’s poor captaincy
MI vs KKR exposed the poor decision-making of the newly appointed Mumbai Indians captain, Hardik Pandya. He made many mistakes throughout the match, so Mumbai had to face an embarrassing defeat.
In today’s important match, their bowler rotation strategy was completely exposed. Gerald Coetzee, who could have been a match-winner for the team, did not even get a chance to bowl his full quota of four overs.
Leading batsman Jarbreet Bumrah got only one over in the first ten overs. When Kolkata lost its five main batsmen on 57 runs, Pandya handed over the ball to Naman Dheer and Chawla.
In such a situation, if Pandya had given the ball to Bumrah or any other fast bowler, the batsmen would not have got a chance to settle down. And they could have restricted KKR to a low score.
Hardik Pandya’s desire to establish himself as a main bowler was also proven wrong in MI vs KKR.
Piyush Chawla, one of the leading bowlers who bowled with an economy of 5, got a chance to bowl only three overs. World-class bowler Coetzee got only two overs in the match. Whereas, part-timer Hardik Pandya bowled 4 overs. He got two wickets but they were coincidentally lucky, Pandya’s bowling was once again poor and he gave away 44 runs at an economy of 11 runs.
Hardik came to bat at seventh number. Though he did not do anything good even after coming 7th place, he should have come a little earlier.
Poor Batting
Hardik was not the only reason for MI being out of the playoff race. Most of his batsmen disappointed the fans with their poor bowling. No batsman took responsibility to spend some time on the crease.
Only Surya Kumar Yadav and Tim David were the players who scored over 20+ runs. The way Naman Dhir and Rohit Sharma lost their wicket was the worst part of MI batting.
Bringing Rohit Sharma as an impact player was also a wrong decision for MI. Mumbai Indians had to play Rohit as a regular player only and call any batsman in the impact player’s room if needed.
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