Virender Sehwag’s Take: Mumbai Indians Belong to Rohit Sharma, Not Hardik Pandya

Delhi Capitals and Punjab Kings opening batsman Virender Sehwag has suggested Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya to take inspiration from Rohit Sharma. Sehwag asked Pandya to do so when the franchise knew how to turn setbacks into comebacks, which they have done on numerous occasions in previous seasons. Veeru’s comments also came at a time when MI suffered their 3rd straight defeat of the season. Everyone expected Mumbai Indians to experience a change in their fortunes in their first home game of IPL 2024 at the Wankhede Stadium. With the home teams having an unprecedented advantage over the visiting teams so far in this edition, MI too was expected to take advantage. However, the toss win by Hardik Pandya remained the only thing they won or bested against Rajasthan Royals.

As soon as the Mumbai innings started, the RR bowlers, especially Trent Boult, aimed to take full advantage of the situation and capitalize on the high morale of the MI batsmen. Mumbai’s top order could only add 20 runs before falling by 4 wickets by the fourth over. Boult will get rid of Rohit Sharma, Naman Dhir and Devald Brevis for the golden duck. Ishan Kishan was sent back by Nandre Berger along with Hardik Pandya and Tilak Verma, who had the task of handling things in the middle after a tragic collapse.

Scores of 30 from Hardik Pandya and Tilak Verma were not complemented by the lower-middle-order.
After the departure of the first four batsmen, Hardik Pandya and Tilak Verma tried their best but could not cross the 30-run mark. Pandya came out of the crease scoring 34 runs off 21 balls while Verma managed to score 32 runs off 29 balls. After that, only Tim David scored more runs – 17 off 24 as MI were bowled out for 125, thanks to 3 wickets each from Boult and Yuzvendra Chahal. , a brace from Nandre Burger, and a scalp from Avesh Khan.

In reply, Rajasthan Royals chased down the total by the 16th over and claimed a 6-wicket win thanks to Ryan Parag’s second half-century. Now with MI losing 3 out of 3, their chances of a comeback hang in the balance as they might lose 2-3 more matches but ideally, they don’t want that.

Virender Sehwag doubts whether Pandya can inspire his team to make a comeback
During his appearance on media post-match show last night, Virender Sehwag claimed that Mumbai Indians have a habit of losing their first few matches and then making a comeback. However, he feared for Hardik Pandya’s captaincy, claiming that the team that was struggling was led by Rohit Sharma, and this team is led by Pandya, so there is a big difference.