When Gujarat Titans (GT) traded their skipper Hardik Pandya to Mumbai Indians (MI), there was a huge uproar on social media. Hardik Pandya, who led Gujarat to 2 IPL finals and ended up winning 1 of them, was considered to be the knight in shining armour for Mumbai Indians.
But the moment he was appointed as the skipper and Rohit Sharma was shunted out of captaincy, fans kept tearing apart Hardik Pandya and there was an unprecedented amount of flak, negative comments and hatred poured in for Pandya.
Even though Hardik has always publicly said that he isn’t affected by off-field comments, it seems like a part of it is getting under the skin of the star Indian all-rounder.
Pandya signalled a transition phase in Mumbai Indians and the 5-time IPL champions lost both their opening encounters in the ongoing IPL 2024. After losing to Gujarat Titans (GT) in their season opener, Mumbai lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) by 31 runs in Match 8 of IPL 2024.
Now the question arises: Is Captaincy Pressure Getting To Hardik Pandya In Mumbai Indians?
The answer isn’t quite simple. Hardik Pandya has been looking quite calm and composed whenever he is coming on to bat. But there are a lot of conundrums associated with his bowling options and choices.
For instance, in the first game, Hardik decided to bowl the 1st over himself ahead of Jasprit Bumrah. This wasn’t well received by a lot of fans and pundits. Hardik leaked a lot of runs in that over and it backfired.
In the 2nd game against Hyderabad, Hardik’s decision to hold back Bumrah when the carnage from the SRH batters was going on, was beyond comprehension for a lot of former players and pundits.
For instance, Irfan Pathan took to micro-blogging platform, X, and voiced his opinions about this strange decision.
“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,” read one of the tweets of the former all-rounder of the Indian cricket team.
Hardik Pandya also played an innings that didn’t suit to the match conditions. At a time when the asking run-rate kept climbing up, Hardik couldn’t soak up the pressure and ended up not being able to time the ball and find the gaps.
The Mumbai Indians skipper scored 24 runs in 20 balls and scored 1 four and 1 six, and batted with a strike-rate of 120.00.
It seems like the added pressure of captaining a star side like Mumbai Indians is getting to Hardik Pandya. Plus the fact that there has been an unceremonious welcome of him back to Mumbai Indians has been affecting the 30-year-old.
Also read: IPL 2024: 3 Reasons Why Rachin Ravindra Can Have A Good Season
