Gujarat Titans (GT) skipper Hardik Pandya is captaining a team at such a platform for the first time and his frustrations with his players were on display numerous times during his team’s match against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), who handed them their first defeat after 3 matches on Sunday, April 11.
Batting first GT managed to put a below-par 162/7 in 20 overs with Hardik Pandya scoring 50*. T Natarajan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar for SRH picked two wickets each. Chasing down the tricky total, SRH openers did well with Abhishek Sharma making 42 and Kane Williamson scoring a half-century.
Though they lost some wickets in the middle, SRH managed to chase down the total with 5 balls to spare and eight wickets in hand.
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Hardik Pandya remained visibly flustered at almost every mistake and misfield made by his teammates and one significant instance happened during the 13th over of the innings.
Pandya brought himself to bowl and was hit by back-back sixes by Kane Williamson. GT then had a chance to dismiss Williamson's partner Rahul Tripathi off the last ball of the over when the batter tried an uppercut which seemed to be flying towards deep third man.
Veteran speedster Mohammad Shami could have taken the catch had he run forward from his position, but he remained stationed there and even moved back a couple of steps to collect the ball on the bounce.
Pandya was visibly angry at Shami and mouthed something to him gesturing that he should have come forward and taken the catch. Replays showed him screaming at Shami after the fielding effort.
Here is the video:
Meanwhile, this gesture of anger by Hardik towards a senior like Shami didn’t sit down well with fans on Twitter and criticized him for his behavior on field as the captain of a franchise.
Here are some tweets:
