Despite being out of IPL, Hardik Pandya has ‘a lot of questions’ about Mumbai Indians, blames himself for…

Almost out of the play-off race after their eighth defeat in 11 matches, Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya looked as if he was looking for answers to all the unanswered questions plaguing the five-time champions in another disastrous IPL season. Were groping in the dark. The franchise handed over the captaincy to Pandya after removing national captain Rohit Sharma, a move which did not go down well with the fans as the colorful all-rounder from Baroda was criticized whenever he entered the field. Pandya said, “There are many questions which will take time to answer. But nothing much can be said right now. Obviously, we could not build partnerships and kept losing wickets. The bowlers did a great job on this track.” The team failed to score 170 runs and lost to KKR at home for the first time in 12 years.

Pandya felt it would be better to bat late in the evening when there was dew but MI failed to take advantage of it.

“If I’m not mistaken, the wicket got better. Dew came in the second innings. Will watch the game and see what we can do better,” he said.

Pandya tried to act bravely, talking about fighting till the last match.

“You keep fighting, that’s what I keep telling myself. It’s challenging, but you accept the challenges.” Unlike him, Shreyas Iyer was happy that his team is close to making it to the play-offs.

“We are (knocking the door) at the moment. There must have been a lot of thinking behind it (if we had lost today). Just came to know about the statistics (of KKR not winning at Wankhede for 12 years)…. .” The “Impact Player” rule helped KKR as Manish Pandey, who came in after the fall of the fifth wicket, contributed 42 invaluable runs.

Iyer said, “This impact player rule especially helped us in this game. Manish was eyeing an opportunity right from the first game. We achieved a commendable score. I told the boys that if we got here If we have it, we can protect it.”

He praised the performances of spin twins Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine, both of whom returned with identical figures of 2 for 22.

“The spinners were unreal, as discussed in the team meetings, they were spot on in executing their lines and lengths. Congratulations to them,” Iyer said.

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