Former India batter Aakash Chopra has lashed out at a fan for wrongly putting out a quote of him criticising Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya. According to a post on social media platform on X, Chopra had lambasted Hardik for his poor captaincy during MI’s game against SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Wednesday. The fan account had also claimed that Chopra had urged Hardik to step down as captain, or the franchise should remove him from the same. This comes after MI conceded an IPL record 277/3 against SRH.
“I have seen the worst captaincy till date by any captain in history of IPL. Hardik Pandya has really done very bad captaincy. Hardik should either give up the captaincy himself or Mumbai Indians should remove him,” a fan account had quoted Chopra as saying.
However, Chopra denied making any such remark on Hardik with regards to his captaincy.
“Kuch bhi? Anything for engagement?? Don’t spread lies, brother. Statement wrong. My name’s spelling wrong. What’s wrong with you?,” Chopra replied to the post.
Coming back to the match, SRH defeaten MI by 31 runs to register their first win of the season. MI, on the other hand, have now lost both of their matches so far in IPL 2024.
It was raining boundaries in Hyderabad’s innings with 18 sixes and 19 fours as MI’s South African import Kwena Maphaka had a bruising introduction to IPL when the 17-year-old left-arm quick went for 66 runs in his four overs.
SRH’s 100 came up in only seven overs and Hyderabad posted the tournament’s highest ever total in the first 10 overs of 148-2.
MI replied strongly in the match which witnessed 38 sixes for another IPL record, bettering the 33 hits over the fence clubbed three times in earlier seasons.
“The wicket was good but, no matter how good or bad you bowl, if the opposition get 277 that means they batted very well,” Mumbai skipper Hardik Pandya said.
He added: “The bowlers were good. It was tough out there. Close to 500 runs were scored so the wicket was helping the batters.”
