Pollard defends Pandya’s leadership role and batting order decisions in GUJ vs MUM game

India’s prime all-rounder, Hardik Pandya played his first game as a skipper for the Mumbai side against his past franchise Gujarat on March 25. He replaced Rohit Sharma under whom the franchise won a record number of five Indian T20 League titles. This move was the most controversial thing in the biggest franchise league as he was replacing the most successful captain and was hence put under the scanner by cricketing critics.  

After Mumbai’s humiliating collapse against Gujarat, he was slammed for not promoting himself up the batting order when the team was in need. Nevertheless MUM’s former player and now batting coach Kieron Pollard has come out in support of the Indian all-rounder. 

Some of the talking points from the match were that Hardik didn’t open with Bumrah, their most successful fast bowler with the new ball. He started off rather which flooded criticism from cricketing legends like Irfan Pathan, Sunil Gavaskar and Kevin Pietersen.

Although Bumrah unlike Hardik’s fast over, shattered a wicket in his very first over of the powerplays, Pollard refused to give much value to the criticisms. 

“It is the duty of the captain to do what he thinks is right for the team. He has opened the bowling for Gujarat Titans over the last two years. He wanted to swing the new balls against Gujarat Titans and I don’t see anything wrong with what Pandya did,” Kieron Pollard said.

The second thing which took him to the centre stage of criticism was his coming into bat at the No.7 slot instead of No.3 or 4 when his team was in need.  Previously he used to bat in the top order for the one-time champions Gujarat. 

Pollard stated that the management decided to hold back Hardik Pandya till the end. 

“Hardik Pandya didn’t take that decision and it was approved by the management. The top order batted deep into the game and we had two power hitters.

“Tim David has finished games for us in the past and Hardik has been doing it over the years.

“We should have given another thought to the situation but it didn’t happen. We will discuss about it.

“But you can’t blame Hardik Pandya. Let’s put an end to Hardik's decision. We play as a team and everyone was involved in that call,” Kieron Pollard said.

MUM will square off against Hyderabad in their next league stage game on March 27 at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium.