Five-time IPL champions began their latest season on a losing note. Pitted against Gujarat Titans in their first match of IPL 2024, the Hardik Pandya-led team gave up a strong position to suffer a close defeat at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday night.
The margin of defeat may have been quite small but to those following Mumbai Indians closely, the result may not have been a surprise.
Why?
MI haven’t won their first match of an IPL season since 2012 and Sunday night’s defeat extended their wait to 12 years.
It was on April 4, 2012 when a visiting MI side, led by Rohit Sharma, defeated Chennai Super Kings at the MA Chidambaram Stadium to kickstart their campaign with a dominant performance. They first bowled out CSK for 112 and then overhauled the target in just 16.5 overs for an eight-wicket win.
That was the last time MI would win their IPL opener.
With a new captain leading the franchise now, MI did come close to breaking the jinx in the chase of 169 against 2022 champions GT who also had a new skipper in Shubman Gill.
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In their chase, MI were 107/2 at one stage before losing wickets in quick intervals as GT bowlers applied the squeeze. They eventually fell short of the target by seven runs to finish at 162/9 in 20 overs.
“Obviously we backed ourselves to chase those 42 runs (in last five overs) but it was one of those days when we see the score quite less compared to what it could have been in five overs, I think we lost little bit of momentum there,” Pandya said after the match.
Despite the streak, MI have been the most dominant IPL team of the past 121 years, having won five of the 11 past IPL seasons, all under the captaincy of Rohit.
Ahead of the IPL 2024, MI heralded a new era when they named Pandya as Rohit’s successor thanks to the allrounder’s superb two seasons with GT that saw him guide the franchise to a title win in 2022 followed by a runners-up finish last year.
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