Former spinner of Indian cricket team Harbhajan Singh expressed his anger at Mumbai Indians players for not accepting Hardik Pandya as their captain in IPL 2024. Hardik replaced Rohit Sharma as MI skipper ahead of the new season but under his leadership it is team slumped to three consecutive defeats. After the defeat to Rajasthan Royals on Sunday, Hardik sat alone in the dugout – an image that infuriated Harbhajan. The former cricketer said that Hardik has been left alone and the situation surrounding the team and the captaincy decision does not look good.
“The images don’t look good. He has been left alone. The franchise players must accept him as their captain. The decision has been made and the team must stay together. Now that I have played for this franchise, the situation does not look good,” Harbhajan told Star Sports after the match.
Former MI star Ambati Rayudu, who was part of the discussion panel, asked whether the team members made Hardik look “confused” and “didn’t work freely”. Harbhajan replied that it seems like “big personalities in the dressing room” are not letting Hardik work freely as captain.
“I don’t know if it’s intentional or unintentional, but there are a lot of people in the team who confuse him. The big personalities in the dressing room do not allow him to work freely as a captain. This is not a good situation for any captain,” he added.
Meanwhile, former Indian cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu believes Rohit Sharma would not have been replaced by Hardik Pandya as the Mumbai Indians captain had named him skipper by the BCCI for the T20 World Cup last year.
Rohit was named captain of India’s yet-to-be-named T20 World Cup team by BCCI secretary Jay Shah at an event in Ahmedabad in February this year, more than two months after he was replaced by Pandya as MI skipper.
“If the BCCI had named Rohit as captain for the T20 World Cup in October, the franchise would not have chosen Hardik as captain. It is a matter of respect for the franchise. So the actual issue here is timing,” Sidhu said in ‘Star Sports Press Room’.
Pandya has faced hostility from fans in the ongoing IPL, being booed in all three matches so far, including the one at MI’s home ground Wankhede, and also finishing on the losing side.
Sidhu said that the fans’ reaction is very understandable as Rohit is a much-loved cricketer.
“Nobody can digest the fact that India’s hero, the Indian captain, is not the captain of our franchise. ‘What did he do wrong?’ is what fans of the franchise would think. But what should he do? “There’s nothing like success. If he had won these two games, there wouldn’t have been any noise,” he pointed out.
(With PTI inputs)
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