MI vs RR IPL 2024: On April 1, the Wankhede Stadium witnessed something unique. At the toss before the Mumbai Indians (MI) vs Rajasthan Royals (RR) match, the MI captain was booed by his home crowd.
Sanjay Manjrekar, who was supervising the toss, asked for a round of applause for the home captain. In return, Hardik Pandya was booed while the away captain, Sanju Samson, stood beside him. Pandya had a wry smile as Manjrekar asked the crowd to “behave”.
Former Indian cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu later gave his two cents about why fans were not happy. He said it was related to Rohit Sharma, the captain of the Indian national team.
“Nobody can digest that their hero, the India captain, is not the captain of the franchise. What wrong has he done?” he asked.
At the same time, he gave a piece of advice that could help Pandya “silence” his critics.
“There is nothing that succeeds like success. If Mumbai Indians had won the last two games, everyone would have been silent. I think he (Pandya) should focus on the team combination,” Sidhu said.
“When you concede 277 runs (against Sunrisers Hyderabad), everyone screams that your bowling is not good enough. How could a team score 277 when it was unprecedented in the tournament? The other game (against Gujarat Titans) was a close one. They were defeated, not disgraced,” he added.
Navjot Singh Sidhu said Mumbai should pep up their bowling this IPL season. While the squad has a great bowling attack on paper, Pandya needs to follow MS Dhoni’s footsteps and go for some “fine-tuning,” he said.
Sidhu said that, in his earlier franchise (GT), Hardik had Mohammed Shami’s support. In Mumbai, there is no Shami who picked up 28 wickets in the earlier season (for Gujarat). Thanks to that, the other GT bowler — Rashid Khan — became even more dangerous at the other end.
MI vs RR Match
In the match against Rajasthan, Mumbai could only manage 125/9 in 20 overs. Hardik Pandya (34 off 21 balls with six 4s) was the highest scorer, while three batters – Rohit Sharma, Naman Dhir and Dewald Brevis – were out for a golden duck.
Yuzvendra Chahal had the best figures among RR bowlers. He picked up 3 wickets in his 4 overs while conceding 11 runs.
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Tags: IPL Hardik Pandya silence critics Navjot Singh Sidhu Mumbai Indians captain
