Former Indian cricket team’s swing bowler Praveen Kumar has slammed the newly appointed Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 season.
The return of Hardik Pandya from Gujarat Titans back to the Mumbai Indians, where it all began for him, has been talked about much, not much positively but negatively as the all-rounder replaces 5-times IPL winning captain with the Mumbai franchise, Rohit Sharma, who still remains with the team purely as a batter.
Mumbai Indians have received heated outrage from its fans after the appointment of the all-rounder as its captain after trading him in from the Gujarat Titans. Mumbai Indians saw fans excute a mass unfollowing spree on their social media pages, which saw Mumbai lose over 2 millions of followers.
With the IPL 2024 set to commence on the 22nd of May with the match between the defending champions Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore, Mumbai will be in action on the 24th of March against Hardik’s former team Gujarat Titans. Hardik has joined Mumbai team in training recently and Rohit Sharma will soon join the team.
Meanwhile, before the team takes to the field, former Indian pacer Praveen Kumar has slammed Hardik Pandya. He said that Hardik remains injured for most of the year, don’t play in domestic cricket and only priorises IPL for money.
“You get injured two months before the IPL, you don’t play for the country, you don’t play for your state in domestic cricket, and just directly play in the IPL. That’s not how things should be done. It’s okay to earn money, there’s nothing wrong with that. But you have to play for state and country and now people only give importance to the IPL,” Kumar said about Hardik.
He also added that Mumbai should have backed Rohit Sharma as the team’s captain and believes he can lead the team for next three years, “Rohit can do it. Not only for one year, but he can do it for two years, three years.”
