Neither of these teams would have seen this coming in the mini auction. Both had squads built to compete. Both had match-winners across every position. And yet here they are, watching the last few weeks from the outside.
Lucknow Super Giants
LSG’s season did not fall apart. It never really got started.
They finished seventh in IPL 2025 with six wins from 14 games, missing the playoffs for the second consecutive year. Coming into 2026, the expectation was that they had learned their lessons. They had Mohammad Shami fit. They had a settled top order. They had a squad with no obvious weaknesses on paper. What actually happened was the opposite. LSG changed the one thing that had worked.
Nicholas Pooran did not bat in the top three for the first eight matches of the season. In that period, he scored just 82 runs at an average of 10.25 and a strike rate of 81.19. For context, Pooran scored 524 runs at a strike rate of 196 for LSG last season. The same player, in the same team, averaging 10 because someone decided to move him down the order. In a fast-paced league like IPL, where even one mistake can prove fatal. It is the kind of decision that costs seasons.
The bowling problems compounded everything. Mohsin Khan missed more than half the matches due to injury. Avesh Khan had an economy rate of 11.06. Digvesh Rathi, who had been so impressive in his debut season, managed just five wickets from eight games this year. Mohammed Shami and Prince Yadav held things together but there was a steep drop off after them and any good batting side found the gap.
LSG’s numbers four to eight had the lowest batting average of any team in the tournament. Their home pitch at Ekana played against them all season, offering movement that their own overseas-heavy batting lineup could not navigate. By the time Pooran rediscovered his form and hit a stunning 63 off 21 balls against Mumbai, it was already too late. They had lost too many games they should have won.
Three seasons in a row now, LSG have finished outside the top four. A franchise with one of the biggest budgets in the competition was eliminated again, just like this.
Mumbai Indians
Mumbai’s story is simpler and sadder.
They were the fifth-place team in 2025 who had fought their way back to relevance. Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav. This is not a squad that should be going home in May. And yet that is exactly what has happened.
The problems started early. Rohit missed five games with a hamstring injury. Without their best opener and most experienced player, the top order looked unstable. Bumrah, by his own extraordinary standards, was below his best. He took wickets but was more expensive than usual, and against this year’s IPL batters, expensive means dangerous.
Head coach Mahela Jayawardene accepted the team had not been good enough this season, making no excuses about their failings. That honesty matters. But it does not change the result. They had a squad with enough match-winners to have won matches on their own, but that was their usual thing. This year was different for those players; still the same one for MI. MI’s performance has taken a sharp dip since winning the trophy in 2020. Even while retaining its usual core, following the habit of finding new and extraordinary talents and creating a monstrous squad. but it’s just on paper, the ground has been much different than expected.
When Rohit came back and hit 84 off 44 against LSG, it felt like a turning point. MI chased 228 that night and it looked like the real version of this team had arrived. Then they lost to RCB two games later and it was over.
Five IPL titles. Eleven playoff appearances. And this year, they are out before the final week. Both LSG and MI will look at this season for a long time. The talent was always there. The decisions were not.
