There was no home comfort for Hardik Pandya, who was given a harsh reception at the Wankhede on Monday. Worse, his team, Mumbai Indians, too capitulated as Rajasthan Royals gave them a six-wicket thrashing.

For the Royals, this was a hat-trick of wins which propelled them to the top of the standings with six points.
For MI, it was an embarrassing third straight loss in the ongoing edition as they remain rooted at the bottom of the table.

 Rajasthan Royals' No. 4 batter Riyan Parag takes the team to win in the low-scoring match at the Wankhede on Monday. He made a 39-ball.54. PTI

Put into bat, MI laboured to 125/9. Defending such a paltry total, they needed something close to a miracle to pull off a win. But there was no such thing in the script.

There was nothing wrong with the Wankhede pitch, which usually has something in it for the fast bowlers in the form of good carry and a bit of movement. The Royals did bowl well, particularly Trent Boult (3/22) and Yuzvendra Chahal (3/11), but it was the lack of application from some of the MI batsmen that worsened the situation for the five-time champions.

While defending the total, Jasprit Bumrah was brought into the attack early in the second over of the Royals’ run chase and he did make the new ball talk. The Royals even lost Yashasvi Jaiswal in the very first over of their reply with only 10 on the board, while Akash Madhwal (3/20) — a civil engineering degree-holder who burst into the scene last season — bowled with a lot of heart.

But so short was the target that the Royals were never under pressure as a mature Riyan Parag (54 not out off 39 balls) and Impact Player Shubham Dubey (replacing Chahal) took them home with 27 balls remaining.

Dropping Jos Buttler at cover early in Bumrah’s second over, skipper Hardik, though, did a pretty decent job with the bat. Without his 21-ball 34 and a partnership of 56 with Tilak Varma (32 off 29 balls) for the fifth wicket, MI would have struggled to post even a three-figure total.

But when it comes to the other batsmen, they definitely could have put in a better
effort while MI also need to ask themselves if they at all played as a team.

To give credit where it’s due, Boult was splendid in the first over, foxing both Rohit Sharma and No.3 Naman Dhir. Rohit, anticipating the ball to shape into him, edged as it left him. Off the very next ball, Boult brought it back into Dhir to trap him lbw before accounting for Dewald Brevis in his next over.

MI were 20/4 in the fourth over as South African quick Nandre Burger removed Ishan Kishan. The Hardik-Varma fifth-wicket stand, thereafter, was the only phase when MI looked to be putting up a fight.

Hardik, as the captain, kept his chin up though. “It’s all about doing the right things. Results, sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. But as a group, we believe we can pull off a lot of better things going forward. We need to show more courage.”