Wankhede Stadium

Five-time champions Mumbai Indians are all but out of the race to IPL 2024 playoffs. Going through one of their worst seasons in IPL history, Hardik Pandya & Co. faced their eighth defeat in 11 matches, losing to Kolkata Knight Riders by 24 runs on their home ground, Wankhede Stadium, on Friday.IPL STANDINGS: Points Table | Orange Cap | Purple Cap The defeat, which was MI’s first against KKR at the Wankhede in 12 years, once again brought Hardik ‘s captaincy in focus. “This was such a good team on paper but was not managed well. The questions that were being raised about Hardik Pandya’s captaincy were absolutely correct,” said former India pacer Irfan Pathan, analysing the game in a video on social media. KKR put up 169 on the board, thanks to a half-century by Venkatesh Iyer (70 off 52 balls) and an equally crucial 31-ball 42 by Manish Pandey, despite MI having the visitors on the ropes at 57/5 in just the seventh over.WATCH VIDEO “When you had KKR’s five wickets for just 57 runs, there was no need to give Naman Dhir three overs in a row. You should have got your main bowlers on, but you had your sixth bowler deliver three overs. That allowed Venkatesh Iyer and Manish Pandey to put a partnership together….Where you could have bowled KKR out for 150, they went on to make 170, and that turned out to be the difference,” added Pathan, raising questions on captain Hardik’s decisions on the field. Mitchell Starc, the most expensive player in IPL history, finally did justice to his price tag with match-winning figures of 4/33 as Mumbai folded up for 145 in 18.5 overs despite Suryakumar Yadav’s 35-ball 56. Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine and Andre Russell took two wickets each. “KKR now looks like a ‘khatarnak’ (dangerous) team after Mitchell Starc’s return to form. They had just one weak link in fast bowling, which was Mitchell Starc’s bowling. The way he bowled to Tim David must be appreciated,” analysed Irfan.The win took KKR to No. 2 on the points table with seven wins in 10 matches. Coming back to MI captaincy, which had changed hands from Rohit Sharma to Hardik before the start of this season, Irfan said MI is not playing as a unit under Hardik’s captaincy. “In cricket, captaincy has a huge effect and it’s very important to manage, which did not happen. Mumbai Indians isn’t looking like a team that is playing as a unit, and this aspect needs to be looked at going forward for Mumbai Indians. Players need to respect the captain and also accept him appreciably, this is very important. That, I think, could not be seen on the field,” the former cricketer cum commentator said. “Whatever the reason is, they have to think about it and improve.”