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Senior players in the Mumbai Indians (MI) dressing room reportedly feel a "lack of buzz" in the dressing room in IPL 2024 and blame Hardik Pandya's captaincy for it. According to a report in The Indian Express, some "key" MI players have conveyed their opinions to the team management.
MI became the first team to be knocked out of the IPL 2024 playoff race on Wednesday after SunRisers Hyderabad's win over Lucknow Super Giants. It was the worst possible result for Pandya, who left a successful Gujarat Titans team for a trade to MI and took over the captaincy from Rohit Sharma to divide the team's fanbase.
Separately, the report said, Rohit, Jasprit Bumrah, and Suryakumar Yadav recently gave their thoughts on MI's struggles over a meal after a match. The team management has also had multiple one-on-one interactions with senior players.
However, the report cited an MI official who believed that this was a common after-effect of a leadership change in a sporting team.
“These are regular teething problems for a team that sees leadership change. This happens in sports all the time,” he said.
The environment apparently has been even more tense since Pandya's singling out Tilak Varma's "lack of match awareness" after their loss against Delhi Capitals didn't go too well behind the scenes.
“When Axar Patel was bowling to a left-hander (Varma), the better option could have been to go after him,” Hardik had said after the match. “I think it was just a little game awareness that we missed out on. At the end of the day, that cost us the game.”
Tilak has been MI's top run-scorer this season with 384 runs at an average of 42.67 with a strike rate of 147.13.
Hardik Pandya and MI have only pride to play for in their last two IPL 2024 games
MI will next play Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens on Saturday, May 11, followed by their final game against Lucknow Super Giants on May 17 at home.
More than playing spoilsport for the opponents, the two matches would be about MI avoiding their second 10th-placed finish in three seasons and going out with some pride.
