“Fans in lots of sports see themselves – not the officials, team owners or players – as upholders of their sport’s unwritten moral code.” – The Economist
Telford Vice / Cape Town
AS Kieron Pollard has made clear, Hardik Pandya has not lost Mumbai Indians’ dressingroom. But it is equally clear Pandya has lost the Wankhede. Conventional wisdom says getting the fans back will take the magic cure-all of winning. In Pandya’s case it might require more than that.
Mumbai have lost four of their six matches in this year’s IPL. As have Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals, while Royal Challengers Bangalore have been beaten six times in seven games. Even so, Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant and Faf du Plessis are not roundly and repeatedly booed at Mullanpur, what used to be called the Kotla, and the Chinnaswamy — like Pandya is at the Wankhede and, to a lesser extent, everywhere else he plays.
Crowds at India’s matches during last year’s men’s World Cup sank into a creepy hush whenever the opposition did something worth cheering. Non-Indians found that bizarre. Could it be ascribed to juvenility? Or was it a symptom of a wider malaise of exceptionalism? Either way, silence would be better than the boorish way Pandya is being singled out by his own team’s supporters and those of other franchises. “Sick and fed up” is how Pollard said the treatment of his captain made him feel.
The unseemly phenomenon tipped into ugliness at the Wankhede on Sunday, when Pandya was jeered as he came to the middle for the toss. And that despite his unbeaten 21 off six balls three days previously, and having shared an important stand of 60 off 32 with Tim David four days before that. Both those games were also played at the Wankhede, Mumbai won both comfortably, and Pandya was instrumental in both successes. Yet, at their first sight of him after that, the crowd greeted Pandya with rudeness.
The section of fans who saw him hug MS Dhoni as the teams warmed up before the game did vent their approval, but the level of happy noise they made was tiny compared to what met Pandya as he emerged for the toss. Was that noise reserved for Dhoni? The answer to that question could be heard in the raucous appreciation for the hattrick of sixes Dhoni hit off Pandya in the last over of Chennai Super Kings’ innings. Dhoni is, of course, Dhoni — a hero to, it seems, all who see him play. How much of the ovation was praise for Dhoni and how much was glee at Pandya’s misfortune was difficult to know.
Adam Gilchrist made a compelling argument, on Cricbuzz, to explain why this is happening. Teams like Mumbai, who have won five of the IPL’s 16 editions, can become “a victim of their own success”, he said. Their supporters expect better than played six, lost four.
Especially when the captain who led the team to all five of their titles is hiding in plain sight. Rohit Sharma is still there; fourth among the tournament’s runscorers and one of three century-makers after 30 games. Was Sharma’s leadership also a victim of Mumbai’s success? They haven’t won the IPL, or even reached the final, since 2020. At the Wankhede, in relative terms, three years without a trophy is exponentially longer than at other grounds.
And then, seemingly forever, there’s Dhoni. Like Sharma, he has led his team to five IPL championships. Unlike Sharma, Dhoni stepping away from the captaincy has coincided with a mirror image of Mumbai’s reality: CSK have played six, won four.
Pandya’s comment after Sunday’s game that “there’s a man behind the stumps [Dhoni] who tells them [CSK] what’s working, that helps” was taken by Gilchrist to mean that Pandya is possibly “not feeling that he has got support around him”. It’s difficult not to think that means Pandya reckons Sharma does not have his back in the way that Dhoni seems to have Ruturaj Gaikwad’s as CSK’s new captain. Thereby hangs another tale within this tale.
Unlike Gaikwad, who has played for CSK exclusively, starting in 2020, Pandya was parachuted into the Wankhede from Gujarat Titans — who Pandya captained to the title in 2022, when Sharma’s Mumbai finished stone last. Gujarat reached the final under Pandya last year by beating Mumbai in qualifier 2.
Born in Choryasi in the Surat district, Pandya is as Gujarati as they come. But he played his first 92 IPL games, from 2015 to 2021, for Mumbai and was part of four of their champion sides. Then he did, for Mumbaikars, the unthinkable.
A move to Chennai might have been acceptable. Likewise to Delhi or Kolkata. But Gujarat? From Mumbai? That was beyond the pale, an insult to Maximum City. The fact that Pandya was released by Mumbai before the 2022 player auction, when Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav and Pollard were retained, doesn’t feature in this narrative. Neither that Gujarat bought Pandya for USD1.9-million, also before the 2022 auction.
What does the ingrate do after two seasons with Gujarat? Ask to be traded back to Mumbai! If there was a way to lower himself still further in the eyes of the Wankhede faithful, that was it. Worse yet, it prompted Sharma’s removal as captain — the final straw. If Mumbai win an IPL under Pandya, expect boos as he lifts the trophy.
This attempt at analysing the Pandya problem comes to you from the sharp tip of Africa. Why, you might ask if you’re Indian, should what is essentially a domestic squabble be of interest in other countries? Because the IPL has long since burst its banks as an indigenous event, if it ever was any such thing. The first game, at the Chinnaswamy in April 2008, involved four Australians, two South Africans, a Pakistani and a New Zealander — Brendon McCullum, who scored 158 off 73.
So woven into the fabric of modern cricket is the IPL in countries where the game has a significant presence — not least because those countries supply many of the tournament’s best players — that Pandya’s predicament has come to the attention of one of the most unfrivolous publications in print anywhere.
“Are Indians right to boo Hardik Pandya, a star cricketer?” is the headline above 926 words on the subject that appeared in The Economist on Friday. “Mr Pandya’s first sin was to jump ship, moving from the Gujarat Titans to the Mumbai Indians. That move earned Mr Pandya, himself a Gujarati, the ire of his home-state supporters. But as part of the lucrative deal, Mr Pandya allegedly insisted that he replace Rohit Sharma as the captain of his new side. For fans of the Mumbai Indians, that act of opportunism against their hugely successful leader was tantamount to treason.”
That “allegedly” over Mumbai’s captaincy change is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Mere players, even those of the millionaire class created by the IPL, do not make such decisions. That’s the privilege of the billionaires who own them. According to another thoroughly unfrivolous publication, Forbes, Mukesh Ambani alone has an estimated net worth of USD115.4-billion. So it cannot be regarded as anything more than rumour that Pandya “insisted” on being made captain.
But The Economist was onto something elsewhere in its piece: “Fans in lots of sports see themselves — not the officials, team owners or players — as upholders of their sport’s unwritten moral code. Booing is their go-to way of signalling and punishing any transgressions.”
Including transgressions perceived by people who consider themselves keepers of the faith, no matter who owns what. Getting Pandya into their good books could exact a price even billionaires cannot pay.
Cricbuzz
Bulletproof Truth 