Hardik Pandya
Is Mumbai Indians (MI) captain Hardik Pandya Targeting Tilak Varma? Fans callout Pandya’s contrasting reactions after recent match losses In the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024. MI captain Hardik Pandya showcased two vastly different reactions towards his young batters – Tilak Varma and Nehal Wadhera – and fans are not happy with this.
Tilak Varma Heroics
When MI faced Delhi Capitals (DC), Tilak Varma played a lone warrior’s innings, scoring 63 runs off just 32 balls. However, despite Tilak’s heroics, MI ended up losing the match. In the aftermath, Pandya was critical of Tilak’s performance, stating that the young batter lacked the game awareness and it costed them the match. In this match MI was chasing a mammoth 258, and their batting order collapsed under pressure. Only Tilak tried to push for a win. He almost took his team home, but got run out at the end stage of the game. This effected the result as MI lost the match by just 10 runs. But Pandya criticized his lack of game awareness.
Hardik Pandya’s Failure
Fans, who are already not happy with Hardik Pandya’s captaincy, slammed the MI new captain for criticizing a youngster after everyone failed. They called out him for poor performance with the ball and bat. Pandya scored 46 runs in 24 balls in the game, but failed to take his team home as he got out. Fans blamed him of not having game awareness and losing his wicket at crucial time.
Wadhera’s Warrior Innings
In a complete contrast, when MI took on Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), Nehal Wadhera played a slow innings of 46-run off 41 balls. He helped steady the ship for the five-time IPL champions after they lost their top order cheaply. With Wadhera’s innings, MI scored 144/7 against LSG. But ultimately lost the match as the score proved to be not significant in front of LSG as Marcus Stoinis (62) played a key role to win the game for LSG.
Pandya’s Contrasting Reaction
After the game, Pandya was all praise for Wadhera, in a stark contrast to his previous blame game. He stated that the young left-hander has been “fantastic” in his recent performances and is destined to play for Team Indian in the future. He further said Wadhera didn’t get many chances in the last season, but he proved himself whenever he got the chance. Pandya’s behavior confused fans even more.
Hardik Pandya Targeting Tilak Varma?
It’s true that Pandya’s contrasting reactions highlight his high expectations from his young players. But blaming a single player for a loss is some what foolish for anyone. Many fans felt that Pandya’s criticism for Tilak Varma is due to the youngster’s relationship with former captain Rohit Sharma. As everybody knows, Tilak is a fanboy of Rohit and his batting ability. Due to this he may not have a great relationship with Hardik Pandya becoming MI’s new captain.
Comparing Tilak and Wadhera’s innings, fans pointed out that Tilak tried to guide his team to a victory, whereas Wadhera tried to stop the collapse. Both innings are crucial in their own way. But Pandya criticizing Tilak didn’t sit well with MI fans. They fear MI’s poor performance in the latest IPL season is due to these factions in the franchise.
Not The First Time
This is not the first time Hardik didn’t showcased his kindness towards Tilak Varma. Back when he led Team India against West Indies, Pandya also denied Tilak Varma a well-deserved fifty, much to everyone’s shock. The match played at Guyana was a do-or-die game for Team India. Tilak played a composed knock and was unbeaten with 49 runs.
But Pandya hit consecutive sixes to guide the team to victory, with 13 balls to spare. Fans slammed Hardik for denying the youngster his second fifty in three games. Many said it was Hardik, who denied the fifty to the youngsters. Fans are also pulling the scenes of that game to prove that Pandya has some ill-feelings towards Tilak Varma in particular.
