Chasing 169 against Gujarat Titans in their IPL 2024 opener, Mumbai Indians needed 62 from 48 with eight wickets in the bank. Rohit Sharma and Dewald Brevis were batting in early forties – both well-set and MI were the favourites.
And then Rohit fell off the first delivery of the 13th over and it triggered a slump that saw MI finishing their innings seven runs short of the target.
And once Brevis fell in the 16th over, the balance began to shift. With spinner operating from one end, GT kept MI batters quiet in the middle overs.
However, MI still had a couple of world-class finishers in their batting line-up including captain Hardik Pandya and Australian Tim David.
Considering that spin was still in play, MI chose to send David at no. 5 ahead of Pandya who only walked in to bat when the contest had swung in favour of GT with the visitors needing 21 needed from 10.
When asked why Pandya decided to bat lower down the order despite his quality, MI batting coach Kieron Pollard rejected the argument that it was an individual call.
“No decision is made on full autonomy, so we can’t say it is his decision. As a team, we have plans; we talk about setting entry points for batters. The top order batted deep into the game, and we also had two power hitters to go in the back end,” Pollard told reporters.
“Usually, if you look at it over time, Tim (David) has finished games for us, and Hardik has done it over the years. So, at any point, any one of them can resurrect the situation. It didn’t happen tonight, so there will likely be a chat about who should have gone earlier,” he added.
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Pollard said all decision are made collectively and it’s not right to point fingers at one particular individual.
“But all of those things are in hindsight, and as a team, we make decisions, so let’s put a stop to ‘Hardik made a decision, Hardik did this, Hardik did that’. We are a team. We make decisions collectively as one,” he said.
Why Tim David was ahead of Hardik when Rashid khan’s one over was left ? I would choose Indian better than overseas batter any day vs spinner. #GTvsMI— Irfan Pathan (@IrfanPathan) March 24, 2024
Former India allrounder Irfan Pathan questioned the logic behind sending an overseas batter to face the spinners.
“Why Tim David was ahead of Hardik when Rashid khan’s one over was left ? I would choose Indian better than overseas batter any day vs spinner,” Pathan posted on X (formerly Twitter).
MI will next take on Sunrisers Hyderabad on Wednesday.
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