NEW DELHI: There is no change of fortunes for Mumbai Indians as the franchise suffered their third successive loss in the IPL 2024, adding to the woes of the team’s new captain Hardik Pandya.
Hardik has been criticised for his captaincy and has been facing the ire of fans since replacing Rohit Sharma as MI captain. The all-rounder was booed in the team’s opening two matches and the crowd hostility was at its peak in MI’s first home game of the season at Wankhede on Monday.Questions were raised regarding Hardik’s leadership decisions, including his choice not to start with Jasprit Bumrah bowling with the new ball and sending Tim David to bat ahead of himself against the Gujarat Titans.
Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan also launched a scathing attack on Pandya’s leadership saying a leader can only earn team’s respect when he does difficult things.
“You always want your Leader to do the difficult things. If he doesn’t do it he won’t earn his team’s respect,” Pathan posted on X.

However, Pandya on Tuesday asserted that the former champions will not give up and will continue to fight in the ongoing IPL despite slumping to a hat-trick of defeats.
“If there’s one thing you should know about this team, we never give up. We’ll keep fighting, we’ll keep going,” Hardik wrote on X.

MI are known to be perennial slow starters. In 2015, they lost the first four games before going on to win the title.