It was not the ideal evening for the Mumbai Indians at their fortress, the Wankede Stadium, as they suffered a crushing defeat against their biggest rivals, Chennai Super Kings. The MI skipper, Hardik Pandya has been in the firing line following his poor bowling performance, especially in the final over of the first innings where MS Dhoni struck the pacer for three sixes to close out the over to make it 26 runs in the over and set a target of 207 runs for the home side.
Speaking at the post-match coverage with Star Sports was the former England skipper, Kevin Pietersen who revealed that he was unhappy with the skipper’s inability to adapt to the match situation.
Pietersen commented,” What I saw this evening wasn’t good enough. I saw a captain who had plan A from a team meeting that was five hours ago and a captain who didn’t want to go to Plan B when he should’ve done so”.
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Another important point raised by the former England international was not utilising the spinners in the right manner. Afghanistan’s Mohammad Nabi had started off the innings and finished with figures of 0/19 in his three overs while their specialist leg-spinner, Shreyas Gopal was handed just the one over where he conceded 9 runs. However, the pace-attack excluding Jasprit Bumrah and Gerald Coetzee were expensive. The trio of Pandya, Akash Madhwal and Romario Shepherd who bowled a total of 8 overs amongst each other, conceded a total of 113 runs.
Pietersen was unhappy with Pandya’s approach through the innings and questioned not using his spinners when the quick bowlers were going for plenty of runs. He asked, “How on earth have you not bowled a spinner when your seamers are going for 20? We were saying in commentary, Brian Lara said, can we please bowl a spinner? Is there a spinner that can bowl? Somebody needs to bowl here. You need to change the pace of the game”.
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The former England batter reckons that the negativity off the field following MI’s poor start to the season has been affecting Pandya’s overall game.
“I think that with Hardik Pandya, everything away from the game is affecting him so much. He is smiling too much when he’s at the toss. He is acting like he is so happy. He’s not happy,” he added.
Pietersen himself has been under fire during his playing career notably for the Text-gate scandal where he was found to have sent derogatory messages about his skipper Andrew Strauss. Reflecting on these hard times, the former RCB man suggested that Pandya would be under pressure when the crowds are expressing their displeasure at the grounds.
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He said,” I’ve been there, right, I’ve been in the firing line and I’ve been in it proper. And I can tell you now, it affects you. What’s happening to Hardik Pandya, the boos we’ve just been hearing now, how unhappy they are to see the CSK former captain, the lion smacking him all over the park, it hurts you, because he has emotion and he is an Indian player and he does not want to be treated like this”.
The England great suggested that there needs to be some change for MI to turn around their fortunes and return to playing the cricket they have been known for and go back to becoming one of the successful franchises in the tournament.
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