Kieron Pollard backed the 32-year-old’s captaincy skills, despite a hard season, adding that he tried what he could with the resources he had. (Express Photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee)The Mumbai Indians (MI) ended a forgettable IPL 2026 campaign with a 30-run loss to Rajasthan Royals – their 10th of the season – and finished ninth on the points table, with eight points in 14 matches. One of the major talking points was Hardik Pandya’s captaincy and his impact on the field.Batting coach Kieron Pollard backed the 32-year-old’s captaincy skills, despite a hard season, adding that he tried what he could with the resources he had.“From a leadership perspective on Hardik, yes, it has not gone maybe as well as he would have wanted as an individual. It might not have gone as we would have wanted as a management staff. But one thing you know is that we have tried each and everything to give the best opportunity to lead the franchise, to do well,” Pollard said at the post-match press conference.“Again, no one is going to sit here and put blame or point fingers. I think when you lose, especially, you have to look at it from a collective perspective. So you win some, you lose some. But at the end of the day, I will question certain things. He was trying. We all were trying. And it just didn’t work out for us. So just as previously answered, again, you sit, you talk, and see what’s best. Never know what’s going to happen. For us, let’s just lick our wounds in the meantime and hopefully come back stronger in 12 months’ time,” he added.The 39-year-old admitted that IPL 2026 had been a campaign of “what-ifs” for MI, and the lack of consistent wins pegged them back this season.“To be honest, it has been a season of what-ifs and overall disappointing for all of us. Everyone would have felt the same way. There’s no hiding from that. We weren’t good throughout the entire tournament. We weren’t able to string together wins and use the momentum when we got it. At the end of it, when you look at it rationally, I think we got the position that we deserved in terms of the type of cricket that we played throughout the tournament,” Pollard said.The franchise faced certain selection issues during the course of IPL 2026, such as the delayed availability of Will Jacks and the premature departure of Mitchell Santner, and later, the exit of Quinton de Kock due to injuries.Story continues below this adPollard, however, felt that MI had sufficient experience in overseas batting and adequate backup for the main foreign batsmen in the squad.“One thing I’ve realised and noticed playing cricket and in management is that when you don’t have something, that’s when the price goes up on that person or whatever.”“So you say we don’t have an experienced batter, then all of a sudden we’re going to look for an experienced batter. But when you look within our ranks, we had Quinton de Kock who started backup to Ryan, we had Sherfane Rutherford who has played the last 12-18 months around the world, even in international cricket, and did well. He was backup to guys, Will Jacks coming in in the middle of the tournament. So I won’t go into that. I think we had what it takes. I think at the end of the day, on the match days and when we needed to win, critical moments are where we didn’t win critical moments,” he said.MI have now gone six seasons without winning the title, which is their longest stretch without being on the podium, surpassing the period from 2008-2012.Stay updated with the latest sports news across Cricket, Football, Chess, and more. Catch all the action with real-time live cricket score updates and in-depth coverage of ongoing matches.© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd