After a successful stint as captain of Gujarat Titans, Hardik Pandya returned to Mumbai Indians, taking over the captaincy from Rohit Shrama. However, the 30-year-old has failed to replicate his captaincy magic in the two opening matches of IPL 2024 so far, losing to Gujarat Titans in the opening game and suffering a crushing defeat against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Wednesday.
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Mumbai Indians had a forgettable day in the bowling department as their star-studded line-up surrendered 277 runs in 20 overs, the highest total in IPL history. Questions were also raised about Hardik Pandya’s captaincy during the SRH clash, including his decision to keep Jasprit Bumrah in for the final overs when SRH batsmen like Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head were on the rampage.
Irfan Pathan reveals Hardik Pandya’s mistake during SRH match:
Sharing his opinion about Hardik Pandya’s captaincy on X (formerly Twitter), Irfan Pathan wrote, “The captaincy of Hardik Pandya has been ordinary to say the least. Keeping Bumrah away for too long when the carnage was on was beyond my understanding.”
In yet another post on X, regarding Pandya’s batting during the SRH math, Pathan wrote, “If the whole team is playing with the strike of 200, Captain can’t bat with the batting strike rate of 120.”
In particular, Mumbai Indians got off to a solid start with the bat as Rohit Sharma (26) and Ishan Kishan (34) made an aggressive start with individual strike rates of over 200. Tilak Varma then continued the momentum, scoring 64 runs off 34 deliveries, including six boundaries and two sixes.
Pandya, on the other hand, could only manage 24 runs off 20 deliveries, hitting one boundary and six during his innings. The slow pace of Pandya’s innings also came into question as SRH’s eventual victory margin was only 31, meaning that had the MI captain played an innings similar to Abhishek Sharma or Travis Head, his team could have pulled off an unlikely victory.
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Published: 28 Mar 2024, 11:12 AM IST