Hardik Pandya Enjoys Eden Pitch, Criticises Batting-Dominated IPL

Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya praised the Eden Gardens pitch and opined that bowlers often feel helpless in modern IPL cricket.

Hardik Pandya returned to action for Mumbai Indians after missing several IPL 2026 matches with a back spasm and admitted he enjoyed bowling on a pitch that offered help to bowlers at Eden Gardens.

Mumbai lost the match to Kolkata Knight Riders by 4 wickets in a rain-affected match where 14 wickets fell and only 295 runs were scored across both innings.

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Speaking after the defeat, Pandya said modern T20 cricket has become heavily tilted in favour of batters, leaving bowlers under constant pressure. He praised the Eden Gardens pitch for creating a better balance between bat and ball.

“I don’t mind playing on this sort of wickets where bowlers have something to do. I think IPL is becoming quite batting dominant, bowlers are feeling helpless. I think, today’s game gave bowlers a lot of something from wicket which makes them come and bowl some good balls, make batsmen play some good cricket and score runs. So, yeah, I kind of enjoyed it,” he said.

Hardik Pandya Blames Costly Fielding Errors

Hardik Pandya then admitted Mumbai Indians paid heavily for poor fielding. He finished with figures of 0/13 from 2 overs, but MI failed to defend 147 after dropping 2 catches in successive overs. Pandya admitted MI have struggled badly in the field throughout the season and said teams cannot afford to miss even half-chances in tight matches.

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“I don’t know. I think, we, throughout the season, we’ve been, quite poor in fielding. We have dropped a lot of catches, which obviously no one wants to do it, but, in that part of the game, I think, there is no hiding away. If you get chances, if you want to win games, you need to grab all the chances, even half-chances as well. But yeah, when you drop chances which can change the game, it’s always you’re chasing the game,” he said.

“We were 20 short. I think we lost a lot of wickets in powerplay, but if Tilak or I would have stayed longer and if we would have stitched a couple of more partnerships and those 15-20 runs, I think we would have had a decent chance,” Hardik added.

In the match, Mumbai had kept KKR under pressure at 73/3 after 9 overs before missed chances changed the momentum. Manish Pandey and Rovman Powell then added a match-winning 64-run partnership.