IPL 2024: Misery mounts for MI captain Pandya as BCCI slaps fine, one-match ban for slow over-rate vs LSG

Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya is fined INR 30 lakhs and banned for one game for maintainingslow over-rate against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in theside’sfinal league game at the Wankhede Stadium the other night in IPL 2024. With Mumbai wrapping up their dismal season with loss at the hands of LSG,Hardik’sone-game ban will carry forward to the next season, meaning he will miss the first match of IPL 2025.

Should Hardik play for any other team than MI, he will miss the first game for that franchise next season.

It'sfor the third time this IPL seasonthat Hardik has failed to maintain the minimum over rate. While the board handed him the punishment, the rest of the playing XI, including the Impact Player, were each individually fined INR 12 lakhs or 50% of their respective match fees, whichever is lesser.

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Meanwhile,Hardik’sfirst stint as MI captain is one to forget. Following a trade between Gujarat Titans (GT) and MI ahead of this season, Pandya rejoined his former franchise, but as the skipper this time, replacing Rohit Sharma.

The fans booed the new MI captain throughout the tournament, with the all-rounder failing to deliver with bat and ball, scoring 216 runs from 14 matches while picking 11 wickets at an economy of over ten.

‘Heart goes out forHardik’

Speaking on the same lines, MI head coach Mark Boucher admitted that the outside noise did‘affect’Hardik Pandya. Addressing the media after the game that MI lost by 18 runs, Boucher said he feels sorry for Hardik and thatit’snever nice to hear booing against a player at any level.

"Itwasn'tgreat hearing all the boos,"Boucher said."Certainly, I felt sorry for Hardik as well.It'snever nice to go through something like that. So yeah, there are certain things we need to address. And we are going to address them.

"Now is not probably the right time. Everyone is very disappointed and emotional, sono good decision will get made in thenearest sort oftime. We need to go back. We need to evaluateexactlywhat'sgoing on,”Boucher said.

Meanwhile, with the mega IPL auction taking place ahead of the next season, Boucher said the team management will sit together and find answers to what needs tobe doneto get back to winning ways. He added that the franchise wishes to take some‘good calls’before IPL 2025 gets underway.

"[There are] things that we need improvement on, whether on the field or off the field stuff,"Boucher said.

"We'vegot some great heads within the management team as well, andwe'llsit downandwe'llfind a way of how to make it better ultimately for the players to produce the sort of cricket that we know these players canproduce, which was under par this season.

"There were a lot of things happening, a lot ofmoving parts this season, whichwasn'tgreat to be a part of at certain times.There are certain things that did affect individuals, which ultimately did affect the team. So those are the sort of things we need to sit down and address and hopefully make some good callsgoing forwardas wellto address the off-field stuff,”Boucher noted.