Rajasthan Royals’ pacer Trent Boult on Sunday backed his former teammate Hardik Pandya to ‘block out white noise’ after the Mumbai Indians skipper found himself at the receiving end of crowd cheers in Ahmedabad and Hyderabad in the ongoing IPL. Pandya has taken over the MI captaincy from Rohit Sharma this season after returning from Gujarat Titans and the whole leadership change story has not gone down well with the fans. “It’s something you have no control over because as a professional athlete you are exposed in a certain way. You have to shut out the white noise and concentrate on the job at hand, but that’s easier said than done,” Boult told the newspaper . media at Wankhede Stadium.
Boult said the booing will eventually subside and backed Pandya not to get bogged down.
“There are a lot of passionate fans in this country and if we talk about Hardik specifically, he is one of my favorite Indian cricketers and I don’t think the booing will continue for long. I am sure he is one of those guys who can put it aside and focus on the work,” Boult added.
Meanwhile, Mumbai Indians’ veteran spinner Piyush Chawla said the situation will change once the team, which has made yet another disappointing start in the IPL, losing the first two matches, gets a win in their kitty.
“Well, that you can’t really help because you know, it’s a crowd and whatever they do is out of our control, so we can’t really say what they do,” Chawla said.
Chawla claimed that Pandya has remained unaffected.
“The way Hardik has taken it… he just concentrates on the game, he doesn’t even worry about what the crowd is doing and once we get a win under our belt, things will be completely different.”
The right-arm spinner said MI have also looked to focus on the job at hand rather than focusing on what the fans have done in the stadium.
“You get used to it because you know, whatever happens, whatever people do in the crowd, you can’t do anything about it because it’s out of our control.
“We just have to focus on our game and whatever they do, let them do. We just have to focus on our cricket,” he said.
However, Chawla hoped that the ‘real’ Mumbai fans would turn up at the Wankhede Stadium on Monday to support the team in their first home match of the season.
“At the end of the day it’s about the team; it’s not about the individual. I really hope that when the crowd comes in tomorrow they will support the team after the kind of start we had,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by WhatsNew2Day staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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