Twenty-four players, eight points, three captains: how Mumbai Indians' IPL 2026 fell apart
Mumbai Indians' season ended a fortnight ago in everything but the league table. Ninth on eight points heading into the final week of the league stage, the five-time champions have spent IPL 2026 rotating injuries, batters and captains, and the result is one of the most expensive collapses in IPL history.
The headline numbers are blunt. Hardik Pandya has 146 runs across eight innings at an average a touch over twenty, and four wickets at an economy of close to twelve. His win percentage as MI captain across the 2024, 2025 and 2026 seasons has slipped to 40.54, the lowest of any leader the franchise has used.
The injury treadmill
The bigger story sits in the medical room. MI have rotated roughly two dozen players across the campaign to cover absences. Rohit Sharma picked up a hamstring strain early and missed much of the campaign. His replacement Quinton de Kock lost time to a wrist issue soon after. Pandya himself missed three matches in a row, and Suryakumar Yadav did not travel to Dharamsala for the Punjab Kings game in mid-May, leaving Jasprit Bumrah to lead the side that night. Three captains, one season.
The compound effect on the bowling has been ugly. Bumrah has been wicket-light by the standards he sets, and the second and third seamer slots have rotated without anyone holding them down.
The captaincy file is open
The question of who leads MI into IPL 2027 is now live. Former India batter Sadagoppan Ramesh has called Pandya's leadership reactive on television. Manoj Tiwary, also a former international, said the captain seems to have lost the confidence of his teammates. Both are pundit takes, but the broader commentary class is no longer giving Pandya the benefit of the doubt.
The defence is the obvious one. Replacing Rohit Sharma in this dressing room was never going to be easy, as Ravichandran Ashwin pointed out this month. Injuries on this scale would have hurt any captain. Both are true, and both will weigh in the same internal review that decides what next year's MI looks like at the top.
Two matches that count for nothing
MI play out the season with the standings already telling the story. The final games are about whether the team finishes ninth or eighth, and whether Bumrah is held back from a heavy load with India's international assignments waiting. The franchise that lifted five trophies between 2013 and 2020, all under Rohit's captaincy, will be home before the playoffs for a second time in three IPL seasons.
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