Reason behind Mumbai Indians not retaining Hardik Pandya has been revealed

Hardik Pandya is one of the highly-rated all-rounders in the present era. He gets the job done in the form of batting, bowling and fielding. To put it in simple terms, he is a complete all-round package at any time. However, his injury-marred his recent form. As a result, he lost his place in the Indian national cricket team.

Moreover, he was also released by Mumbai Indians ahead of the mega auction. Hardik Pandya even took to his official Twitter handle and penned an emotional note after Mumbai Indians failed to secure his services for the next season. With that, Hardik Pandya’s journey at Mumbai Indians came to an end.

However, Gujarat-based franchise, Gujarat Titans retained the all-rounder for Rs 15 crore. GT management named Hardik Pandya as the captain and he will be looking forward to leading the team by example in the next season. Gujarat Titans are one of the two newly-inducted teams in the 15th edition of the IPL.

Why Mumbai Indians didn’t retain Hardik Pandya?

For the unversed, Hardik Pandya was part of four title-winning campaigns at Mumbai Indians. He won the title with the MI franchise in IPL 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020 respectively. The Pandya brothers offered immense depth for the franchise as they performed all-round roles perfectly.

Mumbai Indians retained the likes of Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah and Kieron Pollard. Meanwhile, in a recent report, a source explained the reason behind Mumbai Indians not retaining Hardik Pandya. The reporter confirmed that MI didn’t retain Hardik Pandya for not being able to bowl in IPL and international cricket for a long time.

Hardik Pandya offered all three dimensions to MI barring the last two years when he did not bowl due to injury. He didn’t bowl consistently for Team India since 2020. He sustained a back injury in Asia Cup 2018 and a shoulder injury last year.

Mumbai Indians squad for IPL 2022:

Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah, Kieron Pollard, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Dewald Brevis, Basil Thampi, Murugan Ashwin, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Markande, N Tilak Varma, Sanjay Yadav, Jofra Archer, Daniel Sams, Tymal Mills, Tim David, Riley Meredith, Mohd Arshad Khan, Anmolpreet Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Rahul Buddhi, Hrithik Shokeen, Arjun Tendulkar, Aryan Juyal, Fabian Allen