Former India batter Manoj Tiwary lashed out at the Mumbai Indians (MI) for not making good bowling choices during their 7-wicket defeat to the Punjab Kings (PBKS) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025. However, MI finished the league stage on 16 points after closing out the league stage at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium as well. However, he slammed MI for not handing the new ball to Jasprit Bumrah in such an important match.

“I felt MI did not use enough of their brain, you need to update it some times. See, there was no way for MI to win that match by defending the score for 20 overs, wickets were the only way for them because PBKS have a lot of depth in their batting. If you don’t pick up early wickets, they will chase down scores easily, which is what eventually happened,” Tiwary said on Cricbuzz.

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“In such cases, you have to see who your wicket-takers are. Even if you ask a by-stander that who has the best chance of picking wickets with the new ball, they would say Jasprit Bumrah. If you don’t give Bumrah the first over that is fine, because Trent Boult has a brilliant record while bowling with the brand new ball, but Bumrah should have been given the new ball at least today,” he further added.

However, MI played with a pace-heavy attack as Ashwani Kumar was brought into the playing XI as an impact sub. Mitchell Santner was the sole spinner as Karn Sharma was dropped as well.

“We need to play good cricket. What template will work as a batting group. The bowling has been great throughout the season. A couple of things we need to figure out, we knew what was at stake, and we knew what we needed to do. We are in the same situation as four days ago and we are looking forward to the Eliminator,” Hardik Pandya said during the post-match presentation.