Hardik Pandya's Mumbai Indians have suffered their joint-worst performance in an Indian Premier League with a heartbreaking loss at the hands of Lucknow Super Giants at the Wankhede Stadium on Friday, May 17.
MI were handed an 18-run drubbing by LSG and ended the season with just four wins in their 14 matches. This is their joint-worst performance in a season, equalling their biggest low of 2022 when they registered four wins and finished in the last place in the points table. This is also only the second time that the five-time champions have ended a season in the last position.
LSG made a strong 214/6 batting first on the back of a jaw-dropping 75 from Nicholas Pooran. MI were hardly in the game and even a strong 68 from Rohit Sharma could have saved them from this loss in front of their fans.
Naman Dhir was a shining star in a mostly poor outing with the bat. He kept fighting despite wickets falling and Ishan Kishan finding it hard to get going from the other end. Dhir struck a fifty and inflicted improbable hopes with a six off the first ball of the 20th over when MI needed 34 to win. But all he could manage was 15 runs with two sixes to bring the defeat margin to 18 runs.
Dhir ended his innings unbeaten on 62 from 28 balls. He came in to bat at Number 7 and registered the second-highest score for MI at that position.
Highest score batting at No.7 or lower in the IPL for MI:
64 (24) - Harbhajan Singh vs PBKS, Wankhede, 2015
62* (28) - Naman Dir vs LSG, Wankhede, 2024*
52* (31) - Kieron Pollard vs RCB, Bengaluru, 2012
Mumbai Indians Playing XI: Ishan Kishan (wk), Naman Dhir, Suryakumar Yadav, Dewald Brevis, Hardik Pandya (c), Nehal Wadhera, Romario Shepherd, Anshul Kamboj, Piyush Chawla, Arjun Tendulkar, Nuwan Thushara.
Lucknow Super Giants Playing XI: KL Rahul (wk), Devdutt Padikkal, Marcus Stoinis, Deepak Hooda, Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Krunal Pandya, Arshad Khan, Matt Henry, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohsin Khan.
