Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya returned to leading the side against his former team Gujarat Titans after missing the opener due to a slow over-rate suspension. The return, however, wasn’t auspicious as the Titans handed the five-time champions a colossal 36-run loss.
Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya was penalised for slow over-rate yet again, fresh off serving a one-match suspension carried forward from last year. In his first match of the season against his former side Gujarat Titans, the Mumbai Indians’ bowling innings lasted almost two hours and Pandya was fined Rs 12 Lakh for the over-rate maintenance offence for the first time in the new season.
“As this was his team’s first offence of the season under Article 2.2 of the IPL’s Code of Conduct, which pertains to minimum over-rate offences, Pandya was fined INR 12 lakhs,” an IPL statement read.
Even if there are multiple slow over-rate offences, there won’t be suspensions from this season onwards in the IPL as per the tweak in the Code of Conduct, decided during the captains’ meet. However, the captains will have demerit points added to their names after multiple offences.
Mumbai Indians had four pacers operating at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad as the two-paced wicket rendered spinners ineffective. Gujarat Titans scored 196 runs in their 20 overs and including a couple of timeouts, the innings seemed to have gone on for ages. Nothing went well for the visitors on the day as chasing 196, apart from a few overs when both Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma were getting the boundaries, regularly, they just fell apart.
As the ball got older, the Gujarat Titans pacers Prasidh Krishna, Kagiso Rabada and Mohammed Siraj dug into the surface, using the cutters and slower balls, that gripped and were difficult to hit. Mumbai Indians fell 36 short of the target and suffered their second loss of the tournament.
