The Mumbai Indians were eliminated from the Indian Premier League (IPL) play-offs’ contention after their narrow 2-run defeat against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru at Raipur on Sunday. With RCB needing 15 from the last over, a lot of eyebrows were raised when MI skipper Suryakumar Yadav gave the ball to the relative inexperienced Raj Angad Bawa. The youngster started well, even taking the wicket of Romario Shepherd but he gave away too many extras which ultimately saw RCB win the match.
Former India player Aakash Chopra also questioned Mumbai’s decision of giving the ball to Bawa in the last over instead of Afghanistan’s Allah Ghazanfar who had an over left in his quota. He also failed to understand why Mumbai would bring Raghu Sharma in as an Impact Player but not use him.
“How did you do this Mumbai? Ghazanfar had one over left but you went with Raj Angad Bawa. The youngster who doesn’t even bowl regularly in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, you entrusted the 20th over to him. You also made an Impact substitute. Since the Impact Player rule has come, it has happened twice in IPL history that you took an Impact sub, but you didn’t give him the ball or bat. It happened with Shardul Thakur. It happened with Raghu Sharma,” Chopra said in a video on X.
Mumbai Indians out of IPL 2026! 🏏 From Champions to being the first ones eliminated: what went wrong for the Paltan this year? 🤔 #IPL2026 #MumbaiIndians pic.twitter.com/cImpubG41g
— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) May 11, 2026
“Sharma wasn’t brought into bowl because the wicket wasn’t helping the spinners. If you couldn’t bowl Ghazanfar, then I understand why you didn’t bowl Raghu. But here lies the big question. You had Shardul Thakur in the Impact players’ list. You had Ashwani Kumar, Krish Bhagat and Mohammad Izhar but you didn’t even keep any of them in the Impact Player list. The player who was available, you didn’t bring him in. the player you brought in, you didn’t give the ball to him. Questions should be asked,” he added.
Chopra also said that Mumbai needed to introspect about their form from their last few IPL seasons where even with match-winners in their squads, they more often than not failed to reach the play-offs, even suffering the ignominy of being the first team to be knocked out.
“In the 2010s, Mumbai used to win the IPL every alternate year. 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and then in 2020. But when you came into the 2020s, Mumbai became the team who gets eliminated first in every alternate year. They didn’t get eliminated first in 2025 but were knocked out in 2024 and now, this year, they have been eliminated alongside LSG. Their season is over,” Chopra said.
“It’s a team that has the likes of Suryakumar Yadav, who hasn’t scored runs, Tilak Varma, who has played just 2 good knocks. The team has Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Trent Boult, Quinton de Kock, Ryan Rickelton, Deepak Chahar, Ghazanfar, Naman Dhir. Still, they are the first ones to be eliminated. The time of introspection has come,” he added.
