Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya has been handed an one-match ban for his team’s slow over-rate offence against Lucknow Super Giants. As MI has already completed their IPL 2024 campaign, Pandya’s sanction will thus be effective next season when he returns to lead the team.

However, in the scenario of Hardik being purchased by some other franchise in next year’s IPL mega auction, he will miss that particular team’s first game. It was the third time in IPL 2024 that MI failed to maintain a minimum over rate.

As a result, Hardik, apart from the one-match ban, was fined Rs 30 lakhs and the rest of the playing XI, including the Impact Player, were each individually fined either Rs 12 lakhs or 50 percent of their respective match fees, whichever is lesser.

Hardik’s return to MI colors as captain replacing the five-time IPL winner Rohit Sharma at the helm, ahead of this season was marred by off-field criticism with fans booing the allrounder wherever the side went to play. The scene was no different at the Wankhede Stadium – the home of the Mumbai Indians.

On the field too, it turned a forgettable season for both MI and Hardik. The 18-run loss to LSG on Friday meant MI finished with just four wins from their 14 games and finished at the bottom of the points table. Selected for the T20 World Cup next month, he managed just 216 runs at an average of 18.00 and a strike rate of 143.04 and 11 wickets at an economy of 10.75.

MI head coach Mark Boucher admitted that the off-field noise might have played a part in the team’s “below-par” performance.

“It wasn’t great hearing all the boos. Certainly, I felt sorry for Hardik as well. It’s never nice to go through something like that. So yeah, there are certain things we need to address. And we are going to address them,” Boucher said.

“Now is not probably the right time. Everyone is very disappointed and emotional, so no good decision will get made in the nearest sort of time. We need to go back. We need to evaluate exactly what’s going on,” he added.

The former South Africa stumper hoped the team management would make some good calls ahead of the next season.

“(There are) things that we need improvement on, whether on the field or off the field stuff. We’ve got some great heads within the management team as well, and we’ll sit down and we’ll find a way of how to make it better ultimately for the players to produce the sort of cricket that we know these players can produce, which was under par this season,” he said.

“There were a lot of things happening, a lot of moving parts this season, which wasn’t great to be a part of at certain times. There are certain things that did affect individuals, which ultimately did affect the team. So those are the sort of things we need to sit down and address and hopefully make some good calls going forward as well to address the off-field stuff,” he added.

Analysing Hardik’s below-par campaign, Boucher conceded that the outside noise might have clouded him, but asserted that this season would help him become a better captain.

“I think that if (Hardik) was here, he’d also be disappointed in his performances,” he said.

“From a captain’s perspective, I thought he had some good games. There’s a lot of stuff going on around him that maybe clouded his thoughts every now and again, which I said is tough for him as a leader as well,” Boucher stated.