Former South Africa captain AB de Villiers shared his two cents on the reports of discontent between senior players like Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah and new Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya. This report comes after MI became the first team to be officially eliminated from the IPL 2024 playoffs race.
After three below-par seasons in 2021, 2022, and 2023, in which they placed fifth, last, and fourth, MI elected to replace their most successful captain, Rohit Sharma, with Hardik. The move received a lot of criticism from their devoted admirers. Hardik was booed during the first few matches of this year's IPL.
However, Hardik’s magic that made Gujarat Titans IPL champions in 2022 and took them to the final of the 2023 IPL, hasn’t worked for the Mumbai Indians. Despite Jasprit Bumrah's outstanding performance and the odd brilliance of Suryakumar Yadav, MI have only won four of their 12 games this season so far.
In his first season as the captain of MI, Hardik failed to leave any impact with bat and ball. Moreover, his captaincy hasn't been up to the mark. AB de Villiers hinted that the captaincy change may have had a negative impact on their performance.
"MI has been very disappointing. I backed them to qualify for the knockout stages, but that didn't happen. What has gone wrong? 5th in 2021, 10th in 2022, 4th in 2023 and they are 9th. Rohit Sharma said, 'I have played under a lot of captains. It's nothing new. You do what you are required to do and I have been doing that for the last month.' You can read a little bit into that if you want to," AB de Villiers said on his YouTube channel.
The ex-South Africa and RCB player hinted that Hardik's "ego-driven" captaincy worked well at the Gujarat Titans, where an inexperienced squad followed his leadership. But at MI, the likes of Rohit, Bumrah, and Surya have found difficulties in adjusting to that style.
"The captaincy style of Hardik Pandya is quite bravado. It's ego-driven in a way, chest out. I don't think how he walks on the field is always genuine, but he has decided that is his way of captaincy. Almost like MS. Cool, calm, collective, always got your chest out. But when you play with a lot of experienced players, guys who have been around for ages... They don't buy into that. It worked at GT, where it was a younger team. Sometimes, inexperienced players love to follow that kind of leadership," de Villiers said.
The former RCB batter gave the example of Graeme Smith to make his point and added that a similar style seldom finds success in a team with experienced cricketers and big stars.
"I remember Graeme Smith. He was out there for the team. All I needed to do as a youngster was to follow. Now there's a Rohit, there's a Bumrah. They go like, 'All we need you to be is calm. Give us a bit of input on how to win matches. We don't need the bravado. I'm not having a go at Hardik. I love watching him play. I love him putting out his chest because I was like that.
I believed that as a batter, sometimes you've got to fake it to make it. When you are most scared or feeling the heat of the battle, I can't be the timid, soft-spoken AB I am. The only way to counter that is to make eye contact with the opposition. If you then lose it, you gotta lick your wounds. But if you cross the hurdle, it adds to your confidence.
Hardik has understood that. But it takes a special senior player to buy into that. You know what? You fake it, and we'll follow," he said.
(Hindustan Times inputs)
