After a hat-trick of defeats in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL), the newly appointed skipper of five-time IPL champions Mumbai Indians – Hardik Pandya – is under the scanner and drawing a lot of flak from experts.
Considered one of the richest franchises in the IPL tournament, Mumbai Indians are yet to open their account, losing all three matches against Gujarat Titans, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Rajasthan Royals.
Apart from losing matches, the team is facing the ire of fans for dropping Rohit Sharma as skipper and appointing Hardik Pandya as the leader of the pack.
What experts say:
India’s former all-rounder Irfan Pathan too launched a scathing attack on Pandya and questioned his captaincy skills.
Pathan took to X and wrote, “You always want your Leader to do the difficult things. If he doesn’t do it he won’t earn his team’s respect.”
While fans seek Rohit Sharma to return as Mumbai Indians skipper, former Indian cricketer and renowned commentator Navjot Singh Sidhu explained why fans were unhappy. He believed that the whole saga was related to Rohit Sharma, the captain of the Indian national team.
“Nobody can digest that their hero, the India captain, is not the captain of the franchise. What wrong has he done?” Sidhu asked.
Giving his expert advice to Pandya, Sidhu said, “There is nothing that succeeds like success. If Mumbai Indians had won the last two games, everyone would have been silent. I think he (Pandya) should focus on the team combination.”
Hardik Pandya’s reply:
However, Hardik took to social media to post an inspirational message that the team would bounce back stronger.
Taking to X, the Mumbai Indians captain said: “If there’s one thing you should know about this team, we never give up. We’ll keep fighting, we’ll keep going.”
Mumbai Indians faced the third defeat on Monday at Wankhede Stadium, their home ground, as Royals beat them by six wickets. Now they find themselves at the bottom of the IPL 2024 points table with zero points and a net run rate of -1.423.
Speaking after the match at the post-presentation ceremony, Pandya had said, “Yes, a tough night, we didn’t start the way we wanted to start. I wanted to counter, we were in a decent position to get us around 150-160, but my wicket allowed them to get back more into the game, I needed to do a lot more. It’s okay, we didn’t expect such a surface, but you can’t always have it as a batter, it’s nice at times for the bowlers to have a say.”
“It’s all about doing the right things, results happen at times, at some other times it doesn’t. As a group, we believe we can do a lot better, but we need to be a bit more disciplined and show a lot more courage,” he added.
Though many fans are upset, experts pointed out that back in 2015, MI lost the first four matches before winning the IPL trophy.
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Published: 02 Apr 2024, 06:25 PM IST