Hardik Pandya-led Mumbai Indians (MI) faced KL Rahul-led Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in the 48th match of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari on Tuesday, April 30. . Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow.
Mumbai Indians were invited to bat first in the game and they did a poor job. The top batters failed miserably and MI were reduced to 27/4. Nehal Wadhera (46) and Tim David (35) put up a good fight and took their team to a good total score of 144/7. Defending the total, the MI bowlers did a good job taking the game deep, but the score was too low to defend and LSG won by 4 wickets.
After the game, Hardik Pandya said that the loss of early wickets cost them the game as they were unable to recover from it. Hardik Pandya indirectly took a dig at Rohit Sharma and said,
“I think it’s difficult to recover from losing a wicket early on and that’s exactly what we haven’t been able to do today in the season we’ve had so far.
Hardik Pandya further said that they will learn a lot of lessons from the game and will try to come back strong. Hardik Pandya also praised Nehal Wadhera and eventually supported him to play for the Indian national cricket team.
“I have always believed that you will be on top, and that you will be on top, just that you have to give it your all. You can learn a lot from this game. It was fantastic. I think he (Wadhera) was the last one. “This year too he couldn’t get chances earlier (in the tournament) but he will play a lot of IPL and (represent) India at some point.”
Current position of Mumbai Indians in the IPL 2024 standings
Before their game against Lucknow Super Giants, Mumbai Indians had won just two of their last five games while they suffered defeat in three of them. They were ninth in the 2024 Indian Premier League points table with three wins and six defeats in nine games and had 6 points in their pocket.
On April 11, they won by 7 wickets against Royal Challengers Bengaluru before losing by 20 runs to Chennai Super Kings on April 14. They had then won by 9 runs against the Punjab Kings on April 18 before suffering defeats in consecutive games against the Rajasthan Royals by 9 wickets on April 22 and against the Delhi Capitals by 10 runs on April 27.
After the end of the match between Lucknow Super Giants and Mumbai Indians, the five-time Indian Premier League champions have now remained in the same position.
The Mumbai Indians will next be seen in action when they take on the Shreyas Iyer-led Kolkata Knight Riders in the 51st match of the Indian Premier League 2024 on May 3 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.