File photo of former India captain and battle legend Sunil Gavaskar
Hardik Pandya’s Gujarat Titans will face Mumbai Indians on Friday and a win will almost certainly secure the debutants a place in the play-offs. Hardik Pandya’s leadership has been a revelation this season and he is set to put his A Game in the middle against his former team who decided not to keep him. But the Mumbai Indians were pretty clear that they would try to get Hardik back into the auction, but that opportunity was not available as the Titans offered the all-rounder a chance to lead the new franchise.
The result was excellent for both Hardik and Gujarat but MI felt the absence of the power hitter in their lineup as they are currently bottom of the points list and pretty much out of the equation for a play-off spot.
But will this showdown between Hardik and Mumbai be as intense as the one we saw on Thursday when David Warner took on his old franchise SunRisers Hyderabad? Well, former India captain and battle legend Sunil Gavaskar doesn’t feel that way.
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“Winning means they qualify (GT). So that becomes important. Of course he would like to give his best against the team. But he also owes so much to the Mumbai Indians. MI were the first to give him the chance when he was really not known outside of Baroda. Him and Krunal. And from there, they both worked out so well.
“They are brilliant top class cricketers. He would like to do well because he was not retained, but each team could only keep 3 or 4 players. And MI made the right decision by keeping the players they did. And they were also.” probably also in the hope that they would buy it back, but that didn’t work out. But it certainly won’t be like what we saw today with Warner against SRH. So it won’t be the same for Hardik vs Mumbai Indians last year (with Warner),” Gavaskar said on the show after the DC vs SRH game on host Star Sports.
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