Former India all-rounder and a two-time World Cup winner, Yusuf Pathan lashed out at Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya after the franchise was mascaraed by the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League (IPL) match on March 27 (Wednesday). The Mumbai Indians' bowling attack was utterly and disdainfully destroyed by the Sunrisers batters. The record for most runs scored by a team was shattered to bits by the Sunrisers as they posted a score of 277/3 in their allotted 20 overs.
When the carnage was in full effect, Mumbai's captain Hardik Pandya looked clueless and whatever decision he took and whichever bowler he went to, everything failed.
Hardik's captaincy under fire
Hardik's one decision was very surprising as he held back Jasprit Bumrah for a long time. After Bumrah bowled one over in the powerplay and conceded just 5 runs, he next came on to bowl after the 12th over. By then, the damage was already done.
Yusuf Pathan too was shocked by Hardik's decision to keep Bumrah's over for the backend despite Mumbai desperately needing wickets in clusters to break the Sunrisers' momentum.
"SRH ne 11 overs mein hi 160+ score kar liya hai, and @Jaspritbumrah93 ko abhi tak sirf ek over hi kyun diya gaya? Your best bowler ko toh ab bowl karna chahiye. This seems like bad captaincy to me. #IPL #SRHvsMI," Pathan posted on 'X'.
Mumbai suffer a 31-run loss
Chasing a target of 278 runs was always going to be a mammoth challenge and Mumbai required an all-time performance from the entire batting unit to scale the Sunrisers' score. Ishan Kishan and Rohit Sharma smashed seven sixes between them and laid some sort of a launch pad for the Mumbai Indians but the target was way steeper.
In the end, Mumbai Indians ended up losing the game by 31 runs and suffered their second straight defeat of the season.
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