AB de Villiers Points Finger at Hardik Pandya’s Ego and Arrogance for Mumbai Indians’ Poor Showing in IPL 2024

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Original Content: AB de Villiers Points Finger at Hardik Pandya’s Ego and Arrogance for Mumbai Indians’ Poor Showing in IPL 2024

Legendary South African batter AB de Villiers has raised questions about Hardik Pandya’s captaincy at the Mumbai Indians (MI) in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 season.

MI, the five-time IPL champions, are enduring a disastrous season under Hardik Pandya’s leadership. They were the first team to be knocked out of contention for the playoffs and are currently languishing near the bottom of the points table.

This follows a string of underwhelming performances in the previous three seasons. De Villiers suggests that the change in captaincy, replacing Rohit Sharma with Pandya, might be a contributing factor.

De Villiers, on his YouTube channel, analyzed MI’s struggles and suggested that Hardik Pandya’s “bravado” and “ego-driven” captaincy style might not be working for the team.

This approach, according to de Villiers, might have been effective with a young team like the Gujarat Titans, which Hardik Pandya led to victory in his first season as captain (IPL 2022). However, the Proteas star believes this style of captaincy clashes with the presence of established players in MI, like Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, and Suryakumar Yadav.

“The captaincy style of Hardik Pandya is quite bravado. It’s ego-driven in a way, chest out. I don’t think how he walks on the field is always genuine, but he has decided that is his way of captaincy. Almost like MS. Cool, calm, collective, always got your chest out. But when you play with a lot of experienced players, guys who have been around for ages. They don’t buy into that. It worked at GT, where it was a younger team. Sometimes, inexperienced players love to follow that kind of leadership,” de Villiers said.

With their playoff hopes dashed, Mumbai Indians season is all but over. The question remains whether Hardik Pandya will continue as captain and, if so, how he can adapt his leadership style to better suit the team’s needs.