Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya was at a loss for words on how his side could have restricted Chennai Super Kings at the Chepauk Stadium on Saturday as they fell to their seventh defeat of the 2026 Indian Premier League (IPL) season. MI were beaten in all departments by their arch-rivals, with CSK first restricting them to 159/7 and then chasing it down with eight wickets and 11 balls to spare.
The defeat has left MI gasping for breath at ninth spot on the 10-team IPL table, having just two wins in nine matches. “Not the season, I feel, not just the night,” Pandya told the broadcasters after the match. “They played better, they bowled better, they fielded better, and they batted better.”
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Pandya said that MI could not find any momentum with the bat after the first 10 overs. The five-time champions were scoring at nine runs an over at the end of the 10th over for the loss of two wickets. However, they could only score 69 runs from there for the loss of five wickets. Pandya said that a score of around 180 would’ve been par on the pitch that was offered.
“I think at one point of time, we were looking to get around 180, 190. Should have been a good total, but yeah, we could not get the momentum post 10 overs, could not get the finish as well,” he said.
“It was not easy to go straightaway and kind of play shots, which even their batters, after getting set, they could not really take on the bowlers. It was more about playing calculative cricket and, making sure that we have the right wickets in hand. At the same point of time, batters could not get under the ball, they bowled better. And yeah, just overall as a bowling unit, they were better and as a batting unit, we were not.”
When asked if MI should have been more aggressive with the ball to try and make it difficult for CSK to chase down the total, Pandya admitted that he didn’t really know how the hosts could have been restricted regardless of the nature of the deliveries that they could throw. “I don’t know what aggressive we would have been. I think we would have had to throw some fireballs to get them out. We went with the bowling options we had and and they just played smart cricket. They were better,” he said.
