Former India cricketers Manoj Tiwary dissect what went wrong with Mumbai Indians and their captain Hardik Pandya in particular.
Mumbai Indians are in danger of finishing with the wooden spoon, and the unwanted record will be bestowed upon them if they fail to win their final match of IPL 2024 against Lucknow Super Giants on Friday. After an abysmal season – their worst-ever in history – where do you think it all went wrong for the five-time champions? Was it because of performances? Was it due to pressure? No. Everything boils down to the team atmosphere, which took a hit from the moment Rohit Sharma was removed as captain and replaced by Hardik Pandya.
Nothing went right for Hardik Pandya in his maiden season as Mumbai Indians captain(AP)
From the moment the call was made, MI fans turned against their captain. It was believed that with time, the public’s sentiments would change, but as MI kept slumping to one defeat after another, the emotions only grew stronger. Home or away, Hardik was booed, and it eventually reflected on the team’s poor show, who, from 13 matches, could conjure wins in just four. Former India batter Manoj Tiwary feels a change in captaincy is something Mumbai could never recover from, and it came back to haunt them in the big time.
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“The team couldn’t recover from the initial blows. The changes that were made weren’t on positive note. The captain was changed and before the IPL the new captain shouldn’t have said ‘Rishtey mein toh hum tumhaare captain hote hain… naam hai Pandya’, that too didn’t sit well with fans. The timing of it was wrong. The pulse of it wasn’t captured by fans due to which the support he was supposed to get, Hardik didn’t,” Tiwary said on Cricbuzz.
“And the support of fans is extremely important for fans because the atmosphere here is such. Players themselves acknowledge that we play for the fans in interviews. So you have to take the fans’ perspective into it as well. Cricketing aspects, tactics will always change but had MI convinced the fans and taken them along on their new captain, it wouldn’t have made much of an impact. Hardik Pandya looks exhausted, under pressure.”
Sehwag agrees
Virender Sehwag weighed in on the same, and agreed that the behaviour of the crowd could have been different had Hardik as captain, delivered. The relentless booing and jeering could have converted into cheers if MI had more than just three wins against their name. Infamous for being slow starters, MI once again lost too many initially for their own comfort, and by the time the whatever little wins they had, were registered, it was too late.
“They would have accepted Hardik of Mumbai Indians picked up more wins. Had they won the first 4-5 games, fans would have thought so what our favourite is not the captain, at least Hardik Pandya is as good as Rohit Sharma. Mumbai fans, at the end of the day, want their teams to win. Had the results gone their way, the public would have gradually grown used to Hardik thinking ‘he is out captain and he is winning matches’. But it wasn’t to be,” pointed out Sehwag.
