Praveen Kumar blasted Hardik Pandya for giving more preference to playing IPL and earning the big bucks than playing for the country or for his domestic team.
Former India cricketer Praveen Kumar has made a serious allegation on Hardik Pandya and his fitness a day after the India all-rounder joined the Mumbai Indians camp to begin his preparations for the 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL) season where he will be leading the five-time champions. Praveen ripped apart Hardik alleging that he has shown a pattern of getting injured two months before the IPL and doesn’t turn up for the domestic team, Baroda, or for his country as he has his focus on earning money with his participation in the league.
Praveen Kumar has made a serious allegation on Hardik Pandya(Mumbai Indians)
This is not the first that the cricketing fraternity has encountered such talks around Hardik. Besides it being a usual murmur on social media each time Hardik incurred an injury over the course of the last few years, veteran India all-rounder Irfan Pathan was the first to raise the topic openly from the cricket community when Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan had faced BCCI’s wrath over prioritising IPL over domestic cricket as the two were removed from central contracts. Both Ishan and Iyer, during their time away from national duty, turned a blind eye to the board’s repeated order to participate in the ongoing Ranji Trophy season. Hence, in an unprecedented step, BCCI removed both from the annual retainers for the 2023/24 season.
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However, taking to X, Pathan questioned why Hardik, who doesn’t play white-ball domestic matches for Baroda during time away from the Indian team, was getting a special treatment from the BCCI.
“They are talented cricketers, both Shreyas and Ishan. Hoping they bounce back and come back stronger. If players like Hardik don’t want to play red ball cricket, should he and others like him participate in white-ball domestic cricket when they aren’t on national duty? If this doesn’t apply to all, then Indian cricket won’t achieve the desired results,” he had written.
Speaking much on the same lines, in a clip that has gone viral on social media, Praveen blasted Hardik for giving more preference to playing IPL and earning the big bucks than playing for the country or for his domestic team.
“You get injured two months before the IPL, you don’t play for the country, you don’t play for your state in domestic cricket, and just directly play in the IPL. That’s not how things should be done. It’s okay to earn money, there’s nothing wrong with that. But you have to play for state and country and now people only give importance to the IPL)”, Praveen said.
Praveen’s response came in a query to the question of whether Mumbai Indians were correct in removing Rohit Sharma, who led them to five IPL titles, from captaincy and naming Hardik as their new leader.
Despite the franchise pinning the reason down to Rohit’s dwindling numbers with the bat over the last few seasons, the former Mumbai Indians bowler reckoned that the India captain could have continued to lead the side for another three years.
“Yes, Rohit can do it. Not only for one year, but he can do it for two years, three years. But eventually, the decision lies in the hands of the management,” the 37-year-old said.
