Rohit Sharma (L) and Hardik Pandya© AFP
Former Indian cricket team fast bowler Lakshmipathy Balaji believes that it will take time for Hardik Pandya to make his own place as Mumbai Indians skipper after replacing Rohit Sharma ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024. Hardik ended Rohit’s ten-year tenure as MI skipper after completing a huge trade move from Gujarat Titans. The fanbase as well as some experts have been split over the decision but Balaji believes that Hardik is good enough to handle the new responsibility. However, he also pointed out that if the team starts losing, the new skipper may end up facing major problems.
“It’s been going on for a while, definitely it’s not normally something which you see, a lot of friendships happen, players have gone to different franchises, yes this is one of the cases, but being in a professional field you have to accept that one side is emotional and one side is something very big, when you come to replace a personality like Rohit Sharma who is already a phenomenal achiever when it comes to Mumbai Indians. Definitely it will take some time, it will settle.”
“And you have to win your own men, so for Hardik to win the whole dressing room is very important as a player and as a human so definitely that trust needs to be earned and it will take some time to adapt and accept and I’m sure he’s good enough and professional enough and he’ll accept that and he’s got a young team around him and when they start winning the emotions will be different. If they start losing, then you have problems to face. So slowly things will pop up. It’s better to have a friend in a winning front rather than a losing front,” he said on Star Sports.
Former Indian cricket team all-rounder Irfan Pathan was extremely critical of Hardik Pandya after Mumbai Indians’ loss to Gujarat Titans in their opening match of IPL 2024.
It was the first match as MI captain for Hardik and Pathan believes that he committed couple of major mistakes that ended up costing his side the match.
Hardik opened the bowling for his side and ended up conceding 20 runs in the first over. Pathan believed that he should have gone with an experienced asset like Jasprit Bumrah instead.
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