Hardik Pandya has certainly made a mark with his leadership skills in IPL 2022. Giving the captain’s armband for the first time in the league, Hardik led newbies Gujarat Titans to 3 successive wins before the winning run was snapped by SunRisers Hyderabad on Monday in Mumbai.
Hardik has been winning praise for the way he has led Gujarat Titans, leading from the front with both bat and ball and carrying a commanding aura on the field. However, against SRH, defending a par total of 162, Hardik seemingly lost his cool.
Hardik had conceded just 5 runs in his first 2 overs but when he retired to bowl his 3rd over, SRH captain Kane Williamson took the attack to him, hitting the medium pacer for two successive sixes that helped the former champions bring the asking rate under control after a slow start.
Hardik had an opportunity to dismiss Williamon’s batting partner Rahul Tripathi. He bowled a well-directed bouncer which Tripathi tried to guide to the third-man boundary. As the ball went up in the air, boundary rider Mohammed Shami had an opportunity to take a catch and send the batter back.
However, Shami, instead of going forward, backtracked and took the safer route of saving the boundary. Shami not going for the catch did not go down well with Hardik, who was caught on camera yelling at the senior fast bowler.
Even as a section of fans slammed Hardik for not controlling his emotions at a crunch moment, Swann said it was not because of his captaincy that GT lost their first match in their nascent IPL journey.
“I will tell you what we shouldn’t do though. We shouldn’t look at it and say all of a sudden Hardik is not a good captain. The fact that they did not score enough runs lost them the game, not Hardik Pandya’s captaincy. He shuffled his packs quite well but of course, your nerves get a bit fried as a skipper or a bowler (in tense situations). It was not Hardik’s captaincy but the lack of runs that cost them,” Swann told Star Sports.
