“Axar bowling to a left-hander [Tilak], the better option could have been to go after him, I think it was just a little game awareness that we missed out,” Pandya stated.
The current Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 season has seen the Mumbai Indians endure through a difficult period. Mumbai suffered a six-figure loss in their ninth game of the season, a 10-run defeat at the hands of Delhi Capitals.
Tilak Varma led the Mumbai team in scoring with 63 runs in 32 deliveries, surpassing the club’s lofty objective of 258 runs. His hit, though, was unable to help Mumbai win. Following the match, MI captain Hardik Pandya attributed MI’s defeat to a lack of awareness of the game. He stated that the “left-hander” should have pursued Axar Patel in the middle overs, and that failing to do so lost them the match, even though he did not specifically mention Tilak.
See also: Tilak Varma on his IPL 2024 goals: “I have a slightly bigger responsibility having played for India.”
“Axar bowled to a left-hander [Tilak], and we may have had a better opportunity to chase him; I believe we just missed a little bit of game knowledge. That ultimately cost us the game, Pandya stated during the post-game press conference.
“If I had to pick out a few middle overs, we could have taken some extra chances, but the way the games are going and how the bowlers are under pressure throughout the competition, we backed ourselves to do it, the self-belief [was there],” he continued.
Pandya also lauded Jake Fraser-McGurk, the Delhi Capitals’ opener, who targeted the MI bowlers from the outset, scoring 84 runs in just 27 deliveries to lead DC to a 257-run total. “His batting technique was pretty impressive; he made very deliberate shots. That clever innings. He makes excellent use of the field; if the ball wasn’t in his arc, he was attempting to chip it, according to Pandya.
