Even after being torn apart, Hardik Pandya equals Rohit Sharma's mammoth record in IPL

Hardik Pandya’s start to life as the new Mumbai Indians captain might be going bad but there was a positive that came out last night during their 31-run loss to Sunrisers Hyderabad. Pandya became only the third batsman for MI last night after former captain Rohit Sharma and all-rounder Kieron Pollard to have smacked 100 or more sixes for the 5-time champions.

While many of the things done by Hardik Pandya last night at the Rajiv Gandhi stadium were questionable he was still able to achieve such a rare record. It is unknown whether he’ll be happy or not with that but one thing is certain, the Mumbai Indians fans are not all loving their franchise as much under the all-rounder’s captaincy.

Hardik Pandya was heavily trolled by fans during his visit to the Narendra Modi stadium for MI’s IPL 2024 opening match against Gujarat Titans. And last night’s tragic loss has added further tension among fans and has made things worse for Pandya who is on course to have a very long season as captain if the season goes on like this.

Hardik Pandya says his young bowling line-up will learn from the loss against SRH

Those who missed out on the high-scoring affair between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Mumbai Indians, missed out on the rainy fours and sixes as well as the record-breaking night. Hardik Pandya and co. joined an infamous list of being one of the teams to have conceded the most sixes in an innings during SRH’s carnage in the 1st innings.

MI’s bowling line-up consisting of Jasprit Bumrah, Gerald Coetzee, Kwena Maphaka, and Hardik Pandya among others conceded a total of 18 sixes. Travis Head smacked 3 sixes, Abhishek Sharma struck an outstanding 7, Aiden Markram settled down for just 1 while Heinrich Klaasen emulated Abhishek’s tally of 7 sixes.

It was a tailormade pitch for batting and the SRH batters made full use of it. But questions should (have been) raised about the tactical thinking of Hardik Pandya for his poor management of the bowlers. He underused frontline pacer Jasprit Bumrah in the first 10 overs which automatically discarded all the chances of claiming breakthroughs when the opposing batters were red-hot.

Bumrah was allowed to bowl only one over in the powerplay and by the time he returned for his second over, SRH were already at 180. So that was a terrible decision from Hardik Pandya who claimed after the match that MI’s bowling line-up except for him, Bumrah and Piyush Chawla, are quite inexperienced. The all-rounder also stated that they could have done a few things differently here and there but since they have some new bowlers, the team is bound to learn from the loss.

“Almost 500 runs were scored and the wicket was helping the batters, we could have done a few things here and there, but having said that, we have a young bowling attack and we will learn.” – Pandya had said after the loss to SRH. 

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