@Sithara007 Hardik was in the playing 11 for
sentimental reasons, because they wanted to give him match fitness for the upcoming T20 World Cup. Also besides Hardik collectively MI has failed, and at the end of the season they should introspect why they played so badly and fix the issues before next season starts.
This is another mystery. Why is this hard dick even in the Indian team for T20 world cup? There are so many promising youngsters who are fighting for a chance and the selectors went for a guy who is not 100% fit. To be honest, the selection of squad for the T20 World Cup disappointed me. They went for oldies like Ravichandran Ashwin and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, but ignored promising players like Shreyas Iyer and Devdutt Padickal. But the worst choice had to be that of Hardik Pandya. How did this guy managed to get in?
WC squad is likely to change before the WC as there is a provision of making change in the squad. Pandaya was selected because he is allrounder but he's not fit to bowl, in this case including him in the squad doesn't make sense, even selectors knows that. So wait for couple of more days, Pandaya is likely to get drop due to his fitness including Varun Chakravarthy, poor guy struggling with his knee injury.
Team selection depends on the slots like Openers + 1 down + Middle order batsmen + All rounder including bowler ( Seam-Spin). You can't fit top order batsman into middle order and vice versa.
Shreyas Iyer is back up middle order. Selectors already selected 2 new guys for the middle order SKY and Ishan Kishan. You need to drop one of em, if you want Iyer in the middle order.
Devdutt is Top order batter and competition is very tough for the openers (Gaikward, Mayank, Shaw, Gill etc). Just to give you example Selectors didn't even considered Dhawan and he's averaging 41 in this IPL season, Devdatt average as a openers is around 35 ish. Although i do think we need at least 1 back up opener in the squad atm we have none, Gaikward, Sikhar and Mayank are in good form with average of 44, 41 and 40 respectively.