IPL 2024: In the Indian Premier League, Hardik Pandya, being a world-class all-rounder, has helped his team win matches in the last moments many times. He spent 7 seasons in Mumbai Indians from 2015 to 2021. He played 95 matches for Mumbai in IPL, in which apart from scoring 1,545 runs, he also took 43 wickets. Meanwhile, in 2022, he was made the captain of the new franchise Gujarat Titans. As soon as he became the captain of Gujarat, Hardik started getting applause for his good decisions, but as soon as he returned as the captain of Mumbai Indians in 2024, his performance not only as a captain but also as a player declined significantly. Already happened. It is not wrong to say that Hardik's journey from hero to zero has been very interesting.
Hardik is taking bad decisions as captain
A few days ago, Hardik Pandya was being criticized a lot for his decision of not bowling first to Jasprit Bumrah in the match against Sunrisers Hyderabad. In such a situation where all the bowlers were being bowled fiercely, Hardik got only one of the first 13 overs bowled by Bumrah. Recently, England's legendary fast bowler Stuart Broad had also criticized Hardik's captaincy. He said that Bumrah is not being used properly in bowling, whereas Hardik should take responsibility by batting at the fifth position.
Hardik is not getting support from middle order batting.
The biggest concern for Mumbai Indians under the captaincy of Hardik Pandya is the failure of the middle order batsmen. Naman Dhir has made his IPL debut this year, who has so far been able to score only 50 runs in 3 matches. Tilak Verma played a stormy innings of 64 runs against SRH, but consistency was not seen in his batting. Especially due to the absence of Suryakumar Yadav in the middle order, Mumbai Indians are constantly changing the batting order of Tim David, Hardik Pandya, Naman Dheer and Tilak Verma. Due to this, no batsman is getting a chance to settle down in one order.
Last season, under the captaincy of Hardik Pandya, Shubman Gill was in charge of the top order for Gujarat Titans. In the middle order, Sai Sudarshan, Hardik Pandya and even Vijay Shankar played many good innings in the season. In comparison to the batting combination that Gujarat had last season, Mumbai's batting combination in IPL 2024 looks quite weak in terms of form.
Mumbai Indians have lost 3 consecutive matches
Mumbai Indians came very close to defeating Gujarat Titans in their first match of IPL 2024, but lost the match by 6 runs due to poor batting in the death overs. In the second match, they had to face defeat by 31 runs in a historic match against Sunrisers Hyderabad and now they had to face defeat by 6 wickets in a low-scoring match at the hands of Rajasthan Royals.
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