IPL 2024: 'Put our best...,' Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya shares views on horrible season as skipper

Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya agreed that they didn't play good cricket throughout the Indian premier League (IPL) 2024 season and hence ended at the bottom. Pandya's comments came after their 18-runloss against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in the last league game on Friday, May 17.

"Quite difficult (to summarise), this season we didn't play good quality cricket and it cost us the whole season," Hardik said after the loss to LSG at their home ground Wankhede.

"It's a professional world. Sometimes there'll be good and sometimes bad days. We always need to come out to put our best foot forward. As a group we didn't play quality and smart cricket and it showed in the results," he further said.

Mumbai had started the season with three consecutive losses and could not recover from that. Three wins in next four games did give a glimpse of MI's return to form before four losses in the next four games rendered their season all but over.

The five-time champion could not even finish on a high, losing their last two league games as well. They eventually finished with just four wins in 14 games, losing 10 of their matches.

Pandya himself had a difficult time at the tournament with both bat and the ball. He could score just 216 runs in 14 matches at an average of 18 and a strike rate of 143. With the ball, Pandya picked up 11 wickets in the 14 games but went for an economy of 10.75 runs per over.

After the match against LSG, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) also fined Pandya for slow-over rate. The board fined the MI skipper INR 3 million and handed a one-match ban. The ban means Pandya won't be eligible to play the first game of the next IPL season.