Focus on Pandya, SKY as MI take on LSG

Struggling former champions Mumbai Indians (MI) will hope their embattled stars Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav come good in a clash against bottom-ranked Lucknow Super Giants, even though the chances of qualifying for the play-offs in this edition of IPL has evaporated for good.

Pandya (146 runs and 4 wickets) and Suryakumar (186) have had forgettable campaigns so far, which has hampered MI’s journey, more so in the absence of former skipper Rohit Sharma, who remains on a comeback trail after a hamstring injury earlier this season.

Only two wins in nine matches have consigned the five-time IPL winners, the Mumbai Indians to the penultimate spot in the points table.

While their hopes to remain in contention for the IPL playoffs are all but over, there still remains an outside chance of qualification.

But before all that, MI will have to have their Indian stars doing the heavy lifting, which has not been the case so far.

Pandya’s leadership has come into focus as MI have endured a tough campaign. Tactically, he has been way off the mark.

The batters have collectively misfired, and so have their bowlers, but in between have been Pandya’s ordinary performances both with the bat and the ball, combined with certain calls on the field which did not yield desired results.

With the ball, Pandya has been on and off in terms of execution, but his batting leaves a lot to be desired, especially when he carries a lot of responsibility in that heavily depleted lower order from the past.

Suryakumar has not been able to convert starts while being caught off his trademark strokes, which has indeed been a growing concern as he no longer dominates bowling like he used to.

The Indian T20I captain, who had started the year 2026 with a string of high scores after a forgettable 2025, is once again going through a lean phase where he has neither looked completely out of form nor has he had a long stay in the middle to produce a knock of composure.

Suryakumar’s struggles against pace bowling have particularly come into focus with the right-hander averaging a little above 10 during this phase against the quicks.

The five-time IPL champions, Mumbai Indians and LSG, have eerily had a similar run in this edition, grappling with the issue of collective batting failures, which has heavily marred their chances of making it to the final four.

LSG skipper Rishabh Pant desperately appealed for a break for his side, which has lost five matches on the trot to slip to the bottom of the points table.

LSG began with a loss in the first match but bounced back with two consecutive wins. But their fortunes plummeted from the point they were expected to take off, as ordinary batting could not be masked by some strong showing by their bowlers collectively.

Even in their last game, Mohsin Khan’s 5/23 for the best bowling figures in the tournament were undone by LSG’s erroneous call to send a struggling Nicholas Pooran in the Super Over.

Skipper Rishabh Pant finds himself at a crossroads with questions being posed on his white-ball game in general.

The maverick Indian wicketkeeper-batter too, will face the challenge of turning it around for his side as LSG head into a busy week of having three crucial games in a span of seven days.