{"id":31721,"date":"2026-04-13T15:48:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T13:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=31721"},"modified":"2026-04-13T15:48:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T13:48:19","slug":"back-to-the-drawing-board-for-mumbai-after-third-straight-ipl-defeat-pandya","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/back-to-the-drawing-board-for-mumbai-after-third-straight-ipl-defeat-pandya\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to the drawing board for Mumbai after third straight IPL defeat: Pandya"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\">Mumbai Indians need a major rethink after suffering a third consecutive defeat in the Indian Premier League on Sunday, said \u200bcaptain Hardik Pandya.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Mumbai lost to Royal Challengers Bengaluru by \u200c18 runs at the Wankhede Stadium, leaving the five-times champions eighth in the 10-team table with just two points from four matches.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Despite boasting several Twenty20 \u200bWorld Cup winning players including Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah \u200band Tilak Varma Mumbai have struggled to generate any \u2060momentum.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;A lot of things need a rethink. But we have \u200bto see other options we can have, with the bat and \u200bthe ball,&#8221; Pandya said at the post-match presentation.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;We need to still bat and bowl well. If you do that, irrespective of the toss (we should be fine).&#8221;<\/div>\n<div>Mumbai&#8217;s \u200bstruggles have been most evident in the powerplay.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>The lack of \u200bearly wickets and limited support for Bumrah has raised concerns about the bowling \u200cattack, \u2060with opponents able to see off the India pacer before targeting the rest.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;Last couple of games, as a bowling and batting unit, we have been catching up. Really need to reflect on what \u200bbest we can \u200bdo and how \u2060to get some momentum in the powerplay,&#8221; Pandya said.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Suryakumar, batting at number three, is not firing \u200bon all cylinders while Varma&#8217;s failures have put more \u200bpressure \u2060on the batting unit.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Pandya could look at moving Naman Dhir up the batting order to inject intent early, while England all-rounder Will Jacks \u2060may \u200boffer better balance in place of Mitchell \u200bSantner.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">Mumbai next face Punjab Kings on Thursday, while third-placed RCB meet Lucknow Super Giants \u200bon Wednesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\u2014Reuters\u2014<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22148,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-31721","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Mumbai next face Punjab Kings on Thursday, while third-placed RCB meet Lucknow Super Giants \u200bon Wednesday.\r\n","published_date":"","news_description":"Mumbai next face Punjab Kings on Thursday, while third-placed RCB meet Lucknow Super Giants \u200bon Wednesday.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31722,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31721\/revisions\/31722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=31721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}