The whole season went wrong, says Mumbai captain Hardik

Hardik Pandya had a resigned smile on his face. Not for the first time in IPL 2024. Mumbai Indians had just lost another match this season without much of a contest, again, not for the first time in the last couple of months. 

Hardik's return to the MI and that too as their captain, replacing the five-time IPL-winning captain Rohit Sharma, has been anything but ideal. After a dream start to his captaincy career by winning the title with Gujarat Titans in 2022 and leading them to the finals next year, Hardik returned to MI, the franchise which unearthed him almost a decade ago. 

The move, however, was looked at from a prism of doubt right from the onset.

Just when reports of GT being unhappy with Hardik Pandya cutting ties despite their repeated requests were doing the rounds, MI dropped the bomb of naming him as their new captain. The backlash was severe. The online trolling spilt on the field as Hardik was booed and hacked wherever MI played in the first half of the season. The India all-rounder was not spared even by the Wankhede crowd.

The situation worsened with Hardik's dry run with the bat - he ended the season with 218 runs in 14 matches at an average of 18 and a strike rate of 145. With the ball too, he wasn't as good. He picked up 11 wickets at an economy rate of 10.75. His leadership was questioned. His on-field decisions were dissected like never before. MI were caught in a downward spiral from which they never recovered.

"Quite difficult (to summarise), this season we didn't play good quality cricket and it cost us the whole season," Hardik said after going down to LSG by 18 runs in their last match of the season.

A bottom-place finish with just four wins in 14 matches. How will he pick himself up from this jolt? "It's a professional world. Sometimes there'll be good and sometimes bad days. We always need to come out to put our best foot forward. As a group we didn't play quality and smart cricket and it showed in the results," he said.

Aided by a 109-run partnership between skipper KL Rahul (55 off 41 balls) and Nicholas Pooran (75 off 29 balls), LSG scored a commendable 214 for 6.

The visitors then struck at regular intervals to stop MI at 196 for 6 despite Rohit Sharma's 68 off 38 deliveries and Naman Dhir's reargaurd 62 off 28 balls.

Hardik said it was too early to point out what went wrong against LSG as very few things have gone right for then in the entire season. "Too early to exactly point out what went wrong tonight. The whole season kind of went wrong. We can pass on this game and look forward to the next season."