IPL 2024: Irfan Pathan Criticizes Hardik Pandya’s Leadership After MI’s Loss to KKR
Former Indian cricketer Irfan Pathan made a sensational comment against MI captain Hardik Pandya after the team’s loss against KKR on Friday May 3. Playing at the Wankhede Stadium, MI failed to chase down 170 and were bowled out for just 145 in the second innings. Pathan criticized Hardik Pandya for his captaincy skills after the game and criticized the MI captain for losing his grip on the match. Speaking on his Instagram channel after the conclusion of the match, Pathan said that MI did not need to bowl Naman Dhir’s 3 overs when KKR were reeling at 57/5 in the 7th over of the match. Pathan said that MI could have easily restricted KKR to 150, but they let the match slip by conceding 20 extra runs.
“The story of Mumbai Indians is over in IPL 2024. They were a very good team on paper but they have not managed well. Questions on Hardik Pandya’s captaincy are quite valid. Today when KKR were at 57/5 you bowled 3 bowlers. Naman Dhir bowled your 6th bowler, the 83-run partnership between Manish Pandey and Venkatesh Iyer took KKR to just 150 and that proved to be the point of difference, Irfan Pathan said on Instagram. Pathan argued that the value of captaincy is important in cricket and the biggest takeaway from the season for MI was that the players might not have accepted the change in captaincy. Pathan argued that MI were not playing as a unit which could be an indication that factions had formed in the team.
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“Cricket is a game where captaincy and management are crucial and MI are not playing as a team right now and that is the biggest talking point of the season for MI. It is important for the players to accept their captain and I don’t think that happened for MI this season. is,” Pathan further added.
A similar argument was made by Australia’s Michael Clarke ahead of MI’s KKR game.
“Yeah, I don’t know if they’re going to make the playoffs. I think this is wishful thinking for Mumbai throughout the IPL. “I think there’s a lot more going on than what we’re seeing from the outside, and you can’t. . He has a lot of good players and he performs inconsistently,” Clarke said on media. “So, I think it’s different groups inside the changing room and something’s not working, they’re not playing together, they’re not playing as a team,” he added.
