Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya was slapped with a heavy fine for maintaining a slow over-rate against Gujarat Titans on Friday in Ahmedabad. MI lost the match by 36 runs chasing 197 to win, losing their first two games of the season.
Hardik Pandya missed MI's first match as he was banned for one match as Mumbai Indians maintained a slow over-rate in their final league game in IPL 2024.
However, this time around, he has been slapped with a fine of Rupees 12 lakhs after the new rules laid down by the BCCI. The new rules say that from this year, captains will not be banned but fined in case of slow over-rate offences.
ADVERTISEMENT
Loading...
First Instance Of MI Maintaining Slow Over-Rate In IPL 2025
Meanwhile, this was the first time MI maintained a slow over-rate this season which was why Hardik was let off with a fine. It's early trouble for Mumbai Indians in the IPL who have been slow starters in the league over many years now.
MI lost their first match to CSK by four wickets and now they have lost to GT by 36 runs. In both these games, Rohit Sharma has failed to score. Against CSK, he scored a duck, while against the Titans he scored just four before being castled by Mohammed Siraj.
Hardik Pandya, in the post-match presentation said that the loss was a tough pill to swallow for his side. The chase was gettable on a good batting wicket but early loss of wickets meant that MI were always behind the asking rate. He also blamed the fielders for lapses in the field as well.
"Tough to put it together, I think in batting and bowling we were 15-20 runs short in both places. We were not professional in the field, we made basic errors and that cost us 20-25 runs and in a T20 game that is quite a lot. They (GT openers) batted brilliantly, only a couple of deliveries here and there. They were quite exceptional, they didn't take many chances, they did the right stuff, they were able to get runs without playing many risky shots. We were doing catch-up since then. At the moment we all need to take responsibility, it's still early stages. Batters have to come to the party, hopefully they do that soon" said a dejected Hardik Pandya after the match.
Also Read: IPL 2025 Match 9 GT vs MI: All-round Gujarat Titans register thumping win over MI
