Prateek Tanmay
3 min readUpdated: May 27, 2026 07:55 PM IST
Hardik Pandya’s Instagram account appeared deactivated for a few hours just three days after the end of Mumbai Indians’ rather disastrous 2026 Indian Premier League (IPL) campaign. While speculation brewed online on why this may have happened, the handle reappeared a few hours later. The speculation was further fuelled by the fact that five-time IPL champions MI had a rather dismal campaign this season.
MI finished second to bottom in the league table, tied on eight points with bottom-placed Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) having won just four out of the 14 matches they played and lost 10. Pandya himself had a rather forgettable outing individually. He scored 206 runs in 10 matches but finished with a strike rate of just 138.25, a far cry from the 163.50 he managed last season and well below the kind of strike rate he is known to maintain. Pandya also managed just four wickets in the nine innings that he bowled in and ended with an economy of 11.42.
Pandya was made MI captain ahead of the 2024 season of the IPL in rather controversial circumstances. He led Gujarat Titans to the IPL title in their very first season in the league and to the final in the second after which he returned to MI as their skipper. However, fans were unhappy with the way Rohit Sharma was sacked from the position in the process, all of which led to Pandya being booed at the Wankhede Stadium throughout the 2024 season. The disquiet spilled over into the performances and MI finished bottom of the table.
However, it was a much improved show the next season, which came after Pandya’s heroics in India’s 2024 T20 World Cup victory. MI finished fourth and lost in the Eliminator to the Punjab Kings. This was followed by yet another succesfull T20 World Cup campaign for India in which Pandya played a central role but this time, it was followed by a poor season in the IPL for MI.
Mumbai Indians have won all five of their IPL titles under Rohit’s captaincy. However, since their last title triumph in 2020, MI have struggled to maintain consistency. The current edition of the IPL marks the sixth consecutive time in which MI have failed to win the title, which is their longest stretch thus far.
