Former Indian all-rounder Irfan Pathan remarked that Mumbai Indians (MI) will benefit greatly from Hardik Pandya’s trade to Punjab Kings (PBKS) ahead of the IPL 2027 retention deadline.
According to reports, MI is seeking Arshdeep and keeper-batter Vishnu Vinod’s services and would be swapping Hardik Pandya instead to Kings. Speaking to Cricinfo, Pathan noted that this trade makes perfect sense for MI.
“This trade makes perfect sense for MI. Arshdeep going to Mumbai will solve a huge bowling problem for them. They’ll get a left-armer who’s an Indian bowler, and on that pitch, Arshdeep will be fantastic with the new ball. It will also allow MI to play Santner or one more spinner regularly. His being there will enable that, and they can play an overseas batter as well,” said Pathan.
Further, Pathan asserted that he couldn’t find a proper logic in PBKS losing a proper left-arm pacer like Arshdeep, who is hard to find in the shortest format. He reckoned that despite PBKS having Marco Jansen and Azmatullah Omarzai, they shouldn’t trade Arshdeep to MI as Hardik isn’t at his peak form at the moment.
“For Punjab, they already have two all-rounders in Marco Jansen and Azmatullah Omarzai. Though Jansen is a bowling all-rounder, he’s giving runs consistently. And Omarzai is consistently scoring runs as well. So they’ll have three all-rounders. So my question is why Punjab are doing this. If they were doing this four years ago, when Hardik was at his peak, then it would have been fine. But someone with the pure skill of a left-armer like Arshdeep is going to be hard to find,” he added.
Mumbai ended the IPL 2026 season in ninth place with four wins from 14 matches after finishing bottom of the table in IPL 2024 and fourth in IPL 2025.
