“Hardik Pandya must have been disappointed too…”: Coach Mark Boucher’s honest opinion on the MI captain. cricket news

After ending their disastrous campaign at the bottom of the points table, Mumbai Indians (MI) head coach Mark Boucher acknowledged the team’s difficulties while stressing the need for patience and careful consideration before making changes. Mumbai’s Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 season came to an abrupt end after they lost to Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) by 18 runs, finishing last in the IPL standings. Boucher addressed Hardik Pandya’s captaincy and batting struggles and acknowledged the all-rounder’s leadership abilities.

The MI head coach believes that Pandya will learn from this experience and emerge as a stronger leader.

Hardik had one of his worst seasons with both bat and ball and towards the end his captaincy also came under criticism.

“Even Hardik would have been disappointed with his performance. From a captain’s perspective, he played some great games,” Boucher said in the post-match press conference.

Boucher believes that Pandya will grow as a leader and gain knowledge from this experience.

“There are a lot of things going on around him that overpower his thoughts again and again, which is also challenging for him as a leader. He certainly had a lot of support in our dressing room, and people helped him.” Trying to do it, but it’s difficult to go through this as a player, and this will undoubtedly be a learning opportunity with his leadership development, although times are tough right now, some things will pass, and he will become a stronger leader. Will go. So, some great things are coming for Hardik Pandya as a leader.”

“He came into the season with very little cricket, so it was always going to be quite difficult for him. We understood that too. His bowling got a lot better as the season went on. Unfortunately, he didn’t perform well with the bat. Could. He showed glimpses of what he can do this season,” the MI head coach said.

Boucher remained tight-lipped about Pandya’s captaincy and his future, but stressed that important decisions should always be taken after a cool-headed assessment.

“In terms of my content, honestly I’m not sure where I’m going. Like I said, it’s early days right now. A lot of people are emotional. There’s probably going to be a buzz about everyone, not me. There seems to be only one person, we are in a high-performance area, and when you underperform, you need to pay attention,” he said.

“So, as a coach I can only give my best, that’s exactly what I have done. I have no regrets about what I have done here. Could I have done things better? We will sit and think about it. Evaluate, as we also do with all players,” he said.

MI’s poor performance over the past three years has raised concerns and Boucher agreed that a comprehensive analysis on the five-time IPL champions’ form was necessary.

“Yes, it is disappointing. After our auction, we identified our bowlers that we wanted to strengthen, and we felt we did that. At the beginning of the season, losing two players was not good for us, but then We also had some great options. So yes, on paper, I thought we would do better than we did. We have not been able to combine our batting and bowling in the same match, so that one has always outweighed the other. It’s unfortunate,” Boucher said.

“It is a cause for concern, and it’s definitely something we need to address as a franchise. I’m sure we will. Mumbai Indians is a very successful franchise for a reason. When you have something like this You look at trends, then you sit down, and you evaluate every season, you do a review, and if there are certain trends happening every year, you have to sit down and make some changes and make some big decisions. Will happen, which I know for a fact. You have no problem in doing that,” the MI coach said.

In just 14 IPL 2024 matches, Hardik scored 216 runs, including a maximum of 46. With an average of just 18 and a strike rate of 143.05, the all-rounder’s season started going downhill quite early.

Despite taking 11 wickets with the ball throughout the season, he had an economy rate of 10.75 and an average of 35.18.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)