Hardik Pandya may have emerged as a settled captain in the IPL, but there is also the truth that he should control his behavior. Sometimes Matthew Wade, sometimes Sai Sudarshan, David Miller and Mohammed Shami’s number come. Shami is quite a senior player age-wise and experienced-wise.
These incidents are from the last two matches of Gujarat Titans. Against Sunrisers Hyderabad, he crossed all limits. Something happened that he came to bowl in the 13th over of the innings. Kane Williamson hit two sixes on his two short balls. Pulling one on a bouncer and the other on his short ball over backward square leg. Hardik was very upset by this. When Rahul Tripathi uppercut on the last ball of the same over, the ball fell two yards before Mohammed Shami, standing at third man, but Shami focused on stopping the boundary instead of taking the catch. Hardik got furious at this and told him some un-worthy language. Shami is above Hardik in experience and is older than him in age. There was a discussion throughout the day on social media about whether such behavior with his teammates suits a player like Hardik Pandya. The news is even that Hardik had also abused Shami.
In the 17th over of the same match, Matthew Wade tried to stop the boundary, but he could not succeed. Then his voice was clearly heard on the stump mic that I told him three times (I told him three times). Similarly, the young player of his team, Sai Sudarshan had also shouted heartily. Actually, during the fielding, where there should have been one run, there were two runs. Except for this mis-fielding, Sai had shown excellent fielding on other instances. While it is not a big deal to be angry about such a thing as the heat of the movement happens so often, but things like abuse or misbehavior have no place in the game of being called a gentleman.
In the previous match, when Hardik was out in the 19th over in the match against Punjab Kings, he put all the blame on David Miller. He was held responsible for his runout. David Miller was stunned to see him. In the same IPL, Nitish Rana, who was out cheaply in a match, had hit the bat in anger over the holding of an advertisement, which was considered a Level 1 offense and his match fee was deducted. In the same match, Jasprit Bumrah was let off with a warning for his behaviour.
Be it the Sreesanth-Bhajji slap episode over the years or left-arm bowler Barinder Saran getting Parthiv Patel out and asking him to go out, we have witnessed moments where players have lost control.
Similarly, Virat Kohli hit the chair in anger after being dismissed by Holder in a match played in Bangalore last year. Gautam Gambhir’s match fee was also deducted for his behavior in the match against RCB. KKR co-owner Shahrukh Khan’s misbehavior with an official of the Mumbai Cricket Association also became the subject of much discussion, for which Shahrukh later apologized.
IPL Governing Council should take action against such players. It is better that the team owners should motivate their players for a clean game keeping in view the national interest and the dignity of IPL.