Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya is once again under attack for his on-field captaincy in the match against Sun Risers Hyderabad. This was a run feast in Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi stadium. SRH scored a mammoth 277 rums. It is the highest total by a side in the history of IPL so far. On this day Hardik won the toss and elected to field first.
Mumbai Indians bowlers looked helpless in front of devastating SRH batsmen Heinrich Klaasen ( 80), Abhishek Sharma (63) and Trevis Head (62). Although the placid track played a crucial role in it.
Pandya introducing Bumrah late raises questions
But the key highlight is Hardik’s decision to bring ace bowler Bumrah as a first-change attack. This brings Hardik under the scanner of the cricketing world. He brought Bumrah at a time when SRH batters were already well set.
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Besides, Hardik looked a bit defensive seeing his bowlers getting smashed all over the park.
Former Indian cricketer Irfan Pathan criticized Hardik Pandya for his bad captaincy and wrote on X, ” The captaincy of Hardik Pandya has been ordinary, to say the least. Keeping Bumrah away for too long when the carnage was on was beyond my understanding.”
In the last match against Gujrat Taitans, Bumrah took 3 wickets for 14 runs. But today he gave away 36 runs in 4 overs. He was MI’s most economical bowler.
SRH’s ex-head coach Tom Moodi also slammed Hardik and wrote, “Where is Jasprit Bumrah?? Game nearly done and your best bowler has only bowled ONE over! #SRHvMI.”
Mumbai Indians Lost to Sun Raisers by 31 runs
Pandiya’s homecoming proved to not so good as his team suffered two defeats in two opening games of IPL 2024. But MI did not surrender in reply to SRH’s colossal score of 277 runs. They gave a tight fight. Rohit Sharma(24) and Ishan Kishan(34) gave a blistering start to MI. But their highest run-getter was Tilak Barma who made a quickfire 34 ball 64.
