Neither the bat is working, nor is he able to do wonders with the ball… What has happened to Hardik Pandya?

As the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 is progressing, the problems of Mumbai Indians (MI) are also increasing. After the fitness of Rohit Sharma and the form of Jasprit Bumrah-Suryakumar Yadav, now the poor performance of captain Hardik Pandya has increased the problems of the team. On Saturday (May 2), he came in at number six against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and scored just 18 runs in 23 balls.

Hardik came out to bat when MI had scored 109 runs at the loss of 4 wickets in 12.5 overs. Tilak Verma had just been out. Naman Dheer was playing at one end. In such a situation, the responsibility was on Hardik to along with Naman take MI to a big score but his slow batting restricted the run rate.

Also read: Tilak is getting stuck in front of spin, Surya is worried about pace, what to do if MI does?

Hardik failed to hit big shots

Hardik, famous for his explosive batting, was not able to score runs fast, due to which the pressure on Naman Dheer (57 runs in 37 balls) also increased and he lost his wicket while trying to play a big shot. After this, it was expected from Hardik that he would break the shackles but after the 15th over, the next boundary from his bat came on the first ball of the last over. After this he played a dot ball and then on the next ball of Anshul Kamboj, he was caught by Dewald Brevis while trying to hit a six.

Hardik is counted among the most dangerous batsmen in the world in the death overs, but in this phase he failed to hit big shots, due to which MI, which was seen scoring 180 plus at one time, could barely cross the 150 mark.

Also read: Team India announced for Women’s T20 World Cup, Nandini Sharma gets place

Hardik has flopped with both bat and ball

There has been a lot of discussion on Hardik’s captaincy in IPL 2026. His on-field decisions have attracted the attention of critics but if we look at his performance, the real problem is visible here. In the current season, Hardik has so far been able to score only 146 runs in 8 innings at an average of 20.85. During this period his strike rate has been only 136.44. Talking about bowling, Hardik has been able to take only 4 wickets in 7 innings. His economy is above 12, which is most worrying.