Punjab Kings crushed the former Indian Premier League champions Mumbai Indians by seven wickets on Thursday in IPL 2026, marking their fourth straight loss. Punjab easily won after chasing down the mark in only 16.3 overs after being set 196 for victory.
A video that went viral on X after the defeat featured contentious moments from the game.
The cameras saw a brief altercation between MI skipper Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah during Punjab’s pursuit, which led to rumors that things might not be going well in the MI camp.
At a crucial moment in the game, Hardik was observed offering Bumrah advice and preparing the field in accordance with his own strategy when he was bowling.
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Bumrah was not pleased with this and initially quarreled with Hardik. Eventually, the bowling ace caved in and expressed his dissatisfaction, clearly unhappy with his skipper.
Hardik was seen speaking animatedly to his fielders in other videos that went viral.
Hardik stated after the game that MI must acknowledge PBKS’ better performance across the board while also analyzing if the problems are with individual performances, team strategy, or collective execution.
He said that in order to turn their campaign around, the squad could have to make difficult choices going forward.
‘I think 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. These are some harsh questions which eventually we need to answer, and yeah, ownership has to be taken,’ Hardik said at the post-match presentation.
