Hardik Pandya, who took over from Rohit Sharma as the captain of the 5-time IPL Champions Mumbai Indian, has found it tough at the start of his tenure. The all-rounder has lost the first three matches of his tenure as MI skipper and has faced backlash on social media.
It seems like fan wars over the captaincy saga at the Mumbai Indians (MI) camp have taken an ugly route in the 2024 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Before Hardik Pandya marshalled his troops for Mumbai’s first home game of the new season, supporters booed Rohit Sharma’s successor at the traditional coin toss. A packed Wankhede Stadium expressed their reservations about Hardik – the captain, following his ascension to the captaincy throne in his homecoming game.
Hardik was at the receiving end of fans’ booing on IPL 2024 matchday 14 after former cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar gave the MI skipper a traditional welcome.
With Hardik receiving a hostile reception from MI fans at Wankhede, Manjrekar issued the crowd an early warning. “Behave,” Manjrekar thundred on-air.
Now all this has started after the former Gujarat Titans skipper decided to rejoin his franchise in Mumbai India. While this was all acceptable for the MI fans, the MI management unceremoniously sacked the India captain Rohit Sharma and handed him over to Hardik.
The question raised was “How can you sack the Indian captain as captain of the franchise? Is Mumbai Indians bigger than India team?”
The fans were also seen breaking the chairs at Wankhede.
This kind of fan war is something new in Indian cricket. This did happen in football in India whenever East Bengal and Mohun Bagan played but cricket is well and truly new to this culture.
Seriously, Hardik Pandya is at no fault here, it was Mumbai who maybe wanted a new skipper as they felt that Rohit Sharma was fast ageing and it would be better for a new captain to take over under his supervision. Nothing wrong with that, of course, as Ambanis are spending crores and crores on the franchise and they have every right to select a new captain or decide who should take over.
Hardik was already a captain at GT and obviously, if he is switching to some other franchise he would definitely want to be there as a captain and not a subordinate.
But the fans called it his greed to be the captain of MI, if he switched over to his former franchise.
Agreed Rohit Sharma has won five trophies for Mumbai India and the franchise should have had the audacity to take him into confidence and convey their decision instead of announcing the same on Twitter.
This is something that has irked the fans, who seem to be in an unrelenting mood.
Pandya is trying his best to focus on his job but the continuous “booeing” and trolling on social media has had an effect on his performance both as captain and a player.
Of course, Rohit Sharma – known to be the gem of a person he is, would never want his fans to hurt Hardik in such a manner. He was seen asking the crowd to calm down at Wankhede but to no avail.
So neither Hardik Pandya nor Rohit Sharma is at fault here and it is only the decision of MI to sack Rohit has not gone well with them.
Hopefully, better sense prevails and the fans calm down and we get good cricket to see in Mumbai.
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