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Why Hardik Pandya’s Mumbai Indians ‘homecoming’ was waiting to happen
Few believed the Gujarat Titans skipper would leave with the on-field success they were having, but he was always going back to his first IPL side
“It rang a bell when our head coach told me about the possibility of Hardik Pandya joining our franchise as captain for next year,” said a leading franchise executive. This conversation happened during the last Indian Premier League (IPL) when Gujarat Titans were blazing past opponents in the league phase. Being defending champions and in the middle of another strong run amid stories of how skipper Pandya and coach Ashish Nehra had built the dressing room doing the rounds, “it was hard to believe”, said the official.
That information about the all-rounder's switch proved untrue. But people had got a whiff. Then, there were visuals of Hardik being engaged in a conversation with Mumbai Indians owner Akash Ambani during the live telecast of a MI-GT league match in Ahmedabad. GT beat MI in the second qualifier at the same venue to make the 2023 final. How much could one read into those pictures? They may well have been talking about something else. After all, he had played seven seasons for MI, until 2021.
But those in the know say it was also a message to GT, ‘what the player wanted’.
GT, officials say, had realised well before this year’s IPL that Pandya was not going to be their ‘forever captain’. It isn’t clear exactly when, but Pandya did have a word with his former franchise expressing his desire to go back to MI, where it all began for him in 2015.
GT made this known in a statement by Vikram Solanki, their director of cricket. “Hardik has now expressed a desire to return to his original team Mumbai Indians. We respect his decision and wish him all the very best in his future endeavours,” Solanki said.
Pandya would never have been added to the auction pool, for there was no guarantee MI would be able to buy him. In that case, the purpose of leaving a successful team would be defeated. GT may have seen the point in not continuing with a reluctant skipper.
GT also may have made a few crores more from Pandya’s transfer fee, which has not been made public. But that is not what a franchise that paid ₹5,625 crore to enter the league was ever going to be after. The point of a trading window is to add heft to your squad strength, and with this trade GT have got the short end of the stick.
The sum deducted from the auction purse is all that matters. To have bagged a proven leader and an all-round talent like Pandya for the deduction of only ₹15 crore; R Ashwin has said on his social media channel: “MI have struck gold”.
The BCCI press release on Monday said, “Gujarat Titans captain Hardik Pandya is set to move back to his first franchise, Mumbai Indians, following a trade between the two franchises.”
IPL officials confirm that BCCI was, if not party to, kept abreast of the developments given the high stakes at play. MI skipper Rohit Sharma also leads India and Pandya was his deputy in the recent ODI World Cup, until injury forced him out. BCCI will soon be sitting with the selectors to chart the future roadmap on captaincy.
The next ICC event is the T20 World Cup to be played in the US and West Indies next June. Pandya, recovering from a tendon tear in the ankle, was leading India’s T20 team through 2023 while Sharma was focused on the ODI World Cup.
