Mumbai Indians warned of a fight between Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya after Mark Boucher's comments

Former Australia captain Aaron Finch has expressed his surprise over Mumbai Indians head coach Mark Boucher's recent remarks about Hardik Pandya's captaincy in the ongoing IPL 2024.

The five-time IPL champions endured a disastrous campaign in the 17th edition of the competition and finished at the bottom of the points table. The decision to hand the captaincy to Hardik Pandya did not work out at all as Mumbai Indians struggled throughout the season.

The Mumbai-based outfit looked unsettled throughout the competition and was rarely in contention to qualify for the playoffs.

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With Hardik Pandya failing to lead from the front, Mumbai Indians' campaign fell apart from the very start. In the end, they finished the season with just four wins from 14 games. After the end of the campaign, Mark Boucher admitted that the off-field incidents affected Hardik Pandya's performance on the field.

Aaron Finch was surprised by Mark Boucher's comments:

The franchise's decision to replace Rohit Sharma with Hardik Pandya as the captain did not go down well with the fans and they made sure to vent their anger. The fans booed and jeered Pandya throughout the tournament. While Boucher's comments did not surprise many, Aaron Finch is not one of them.

The Australia great expressed his surprise over Boucher's comments and said that the Mumbai Indians coach should have ensured that the team had a plan in place before each game. Finch also warned that there would be a lot of fallouts in the Mumbai Indians camp after the disappointing season this year.

"There will be a lot of fallouts. It was a really disappointing campaign. The one thing that alarmed me slightly was Mark Boucher saying that the off-field issues clouded Hardik Pandya's decision-making on the field.

"That's the coach's job that you are crystal clear going out to each game. You should be so well planned and prepared that you thought through every scenario possible. So when it's time, one of the moves you discuss is well and truly thought out," Finch was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.

Talking about Pandya's performance this season, the allrounder failed to make an impact with both bat and ball. In 14 games, he scored 216 runs at an average of 18. With the ball, he picked up 11 wickets but had an economy rate of almost 11.