Veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has said that he won’t judge Mumbai Indians (MI)’s decision to replace Rohit Sharma with Hardik Pandya as their captain for the upcoming IPL 2024. However, he feels that Hardik might have an arduous task to extract the best from his players. Notably, Mumbai Indians head coach Mark Boucher recently said that MI’s call to appoint Hardik as captain was a cricketing decision and shouldn’t be judged emotionally as well. He also added that the move might help bring the best out of Rohit as a player as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra said: “I was listening to an interview with Boucher where he explained why they did the captaincy change. He tried to explain the cricketing reasons, but Ritika (Rohit’s wife) commented below that, and it was obvious that it would go viral because she said – ‘So many things are wrong with this’. We don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong. I am slightly worried because the Mumbai Indians have a phenomenal team on paper, but the biggest pressure on Hardik Pandya will be whether he can combine the five fingers to make a fist, whether he can take the entire team in one direction.”
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However, Mumbai Indians lost to Gujarat Titans under Rohit Sharma, where Gujarat were captained by Hardik, in Qualifier 2 in IPL 2023. The five-time champions didn’t qualify for the playoffs in the previous two seasons also and will hope that the captaincy change will bring a change in the fortune. Meanwhile, Aakash Chopra also opened up on Rahul Dravid’s recent statement that Ishan Kishan as well.
“He is right. It’s been a long time since Ishan Kishan took a break. He hasn’t played any cricket, and he has been on an extended break. He is not playing first-class cricket as well. Since he asked for leave due to mental fatigue, I hope he is in a happy space. I feel he will get a chance to play in the Indian team only once he starts playing.”If he is not going to play for a while, the Indian team is not going to consider him, whether Kona Bharat scores runs or not, Dhruv Jurel plays or (Narayan) Jagadeesan’s name comes,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
