(MI) captain Hardik Pandya hinted at big changes as MI suffered its fourth straight loss in IPL 2026. Having started the tournament with a win over Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), MI lost to Delhi Capitals, Rajasthan Royals, Royal Challengers Bengaluru and most recently (PBKS), and now finds itself at ninth position in the IPL points table.
The script wasn’t too different for MI against PBKS, with the top order not firing, and bowling looking helpless. It was the brilliance of Quinton de Kock, who scored a whirlwind century to take MI to 195-6, but PBKS cruised to a win in just the 17th over, with seven wickets to spare.
Hardik didn’t mince words after the defeat and said that the management will have to assess if they need to take difficult calls to turn things around.
“We need to see, do we need to make some difficult calls or do we need to keep continuing and hope that we’ll turn things around,” Pandya said during the post-match presentation. “Is it individuals? Is it as a group? Is it for planning? We’ll just figure it out and see what we can do next.” He added
While MI’s performance has been concerning, PBKS are flying high under Shreyas Iyer. They reached the final last year and have won four out of the five matches in IPL 2026. The team outplayed MI in all departments of the game, and Hardik couldn’t agree more.
“The ball started reversing. In the second innings, the dew came and it got slightly better, but having said that, they just outplayed us. They bowled better, they batted better, and they fielded better – definitely,” he added.
How Can MI Qualify For Playoffs
MI have two points in five games, and the road to the playoffs won’t be easy. A team needs 8-9 wins to secure automatic qualification, so MI would need to win nearly all games to have hopes of reaching the playoffs. Given their form, this looks a monumental ask. But MI have done it before. They have often started poorly, but have stormed back into the tournament, even going on to win the tournament, so MI fans will still have hopes of a turnaround.