Former Indian legendary batter Sunil Gavaskar has given his opinion on the failure of Mumbai Indians in IPL 2024. Gavaskar believes that the negativity surrounding Hardik Pandya’s appointment as the captain of MI had a significant impact on his performance in the IPL 2024 season. This resulted in Pandya having one of his worst seasons both as a batsman and a bowler, with his captaincy also coming under criticism. MI ended the season at the bottom of the points table with just 8 points.
Speaking to Star Sports after MI’s loss to LSG, Gavaskar expressed his belief that Hardik Pandya’s performance was hindered by a lack of a strong start and negative comments directed towards him. The cricket legend suggested that if Hardik had scored significant runs and taken wickets in the first game of the campaign, the narrative surrounding him would have been different.
“He didn’t quite get up to a good start. I think there was a lot of negativity about his appointment as captain of the Mumbai team and however hard you are as a person, that will have affected him, it does affect you. Everybody is human. Nobody likes to hear critical comments about yourself and I think that would certainly have affected him. And despite that, if somehow if he had got runs in that first game or got a couple of wickets in that first game, it would have been different. He didn’t do that and that’s the reason why it was just a struggle for him,” said Gavaskar.
In IPL 2024, Hardik Pandya accumulated just 216 runs across 14 matches, where his highest score was 46 runs. With an average of 18 and a strike rate of 143.05, the all-rounder encountered difficulties right from the beginning of the season.
