Nothing has been going right for Mumbai Indians in IPL 2026. On Wednesday night, they produced their best-ever first-innings score, yet it still wasn’t enough, with Sunrisers Hyderabad chasing down 244 and getting to the finish with eight balls to spare. The loss has left MI locked in a battle for the bottom of the table; after eight matches, they sit on the same points as Lucknow Super Giants (4), with MI only edging ahead on net run rate.
Mumbai captain Hardik Pandya made the rare call to bat first. In the 21 previous IPL matches at the Wankhede Stadium where the toss-winning side opted to bat, the result had generally favoured chasing—yet Hardik felt the conditions on the night didn’t offer the usual advantage. In fact, in those past Wankhede games, the teams that won the toss had overwhelmingly chosen to bowl.
“I don’t think dew played much of a role, just that they [SRH] played some good shots,” Hardik said in his post-match interview. “We bowled some bad balls, they got [off] to a flier. I think we did pull it back, but it was not enough.”
Hardik believed MI had the right to defend their score on most days. “I think 244, I think I’ll back my bowlers to stop it, but yeah, some other day. Today we could not execute.”
SRH’s chase was shaped in the opening six overs, when Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma drove the powerplay to 92 without loss. MI did get moments to change the course, but they couldn’t convert them. Naman Dhir dropped two chances, Will Jacks couldn’t hang on to a difficult catch, and MI also missed an edge off Head’s bat that would have been worth a review.
“It’s been that kind of season,” Hardik added. “When you get a couple of chances, you grab them—that’s when luck and momentum changes. If you don’t, it kind of hurts you, but it’s still fine, all the boys tried really well. They gave everything, [it] did not [work] out.”
The defeat further highlighted the bowling problems that have followed MI throughout the campaign. No bowler managed to slow SRH’s run-making. Jasprit Bumrah, MI’s key strike option, conceded 54 runs in his four overs—his fourth-highest total of runs allowed in any T20 format. Impact Player Shardul Thakur, meanwhile, remained unused.
MI have experimented across their bowling options all season, and have even gone as far as rotating through more players than any other team—using 22 in total. Yet, Hardik admitted he was unsure what specific adjustments could quickly reverse the trend when asked about how to turn things around.
“I think this season we don’t have much option,” he said. “We really need to see what we can do [differently]. I won’t put my bowlers under the bus. I think as an overall unit, we have not been able to do what exactly Mumbai Indians stands for.
“We really need to see what we need to work on, and it’s fine. We have passionate owners, we have a passionate support staff, we all will figure out something.”
