It was not too long back that Hardik Pandya was India’s premier allrounder in the T20 format of the game and was one of the best T20 players in the world, but his fragile bowling fitness has pushed him to a stage where he has now been left out of the list of the players that Mumbai Indians have retained before IPL 2022 mega auction.
The reports suggest Mumbai Indians were thinking about retaining Hardik, but they changed their plans as Hardik has not been bowling at all, either in international cricket or in the IPL in the recent past.
Hardik Pandya was the part of 4 title winning campaigns of Mumbai Indians, starting from 2015. He and his brother Krunal Pandya turned Mumbai into the most balanced team of the league, a team which didn’t just bat deep, but also had 6 bowling options to their disposal all the time.
While Krunal has suffered a bit of a decline in the last year or so in terms of his T20 batting, the issue with Hardik is his inability to bowl consistently since his back surgery and if Mumbai Indians had to retain him at this stage, he had to be retained effectively as a specialist batsman.
It was earlier speculated that Mumbai might retain the young left-hander Ishan Kishan as their 4th player, but as it turned out, it was Suryakumar Yadav who was retained as the 4th player by the franchise alongside the captain Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah and Kieron Pollard.
Hardik Pandya might be a draft pick for one of the two new IPL franchises
There were reports going around that Surya was one of the players the two new IPL franchises were eyeing for draft picks and Cricbuzz had reported that one of the franchises had even approached Surya with an offer, but he didn’t answer back to the approach and Mumbai eventually kept his services for the next season.
Now, Hardik Pandya will be one of the strong contenders for the draft picks by the two new franchises, given the power hitting value he adds to the squad, batting at no. 6.
