Cricket

Mumbai Indians (MI) endured a disastrous Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 campaign, finishing at the bottom of the points table. Head coach Mark Boucher acknowledged the team's struggles and emphasized the need for patience and careful consideration before making changes.Boucher addressed Hardik Pandya's captaincy and batting struggles, acknowledging the all-rounder's leadership potential. Despite a disappointing season, Boucher believes Pandya will learn from this experience and emerge as a stronger leader."Even Hardik would've been disappointed with his performance. From a captain's perspective, he had some excellent games," Boucher said. "There's a lot of stuff going around him that clouds his thoughts now and again, which is also challenging for him as a leader."Boucher believes Pandya will grow as a leader and gain knowledge from this experience. "He certainly had a lot of support within our dressing room, and guys are trying to help him out, but it is tricky to go through as a player. It is what it is, and it will undoubtedly be a learning curve for him with his leadership growth."Regarding his own future, Boucher remained tight-lipped but underlined the importance of making decisions after a cool-headed assessment. "With regards to my stuff, I'm not too sure where I'm going, to be honest. As I said, it's early days at the moment. A lot of people are emotional. There's probably going to be discussions about all of us."Boucher also expressed concerns about MI's subpar performance over the last three years. "It's disappointing. After our auction, we identified our bowlers as something we wanted to strengthen, and we felt that we did that. At the beginning of the season, losing two players wasn't great for us, but we still had some great options.""We just haven't managed to combine our batting and bowling in one single match. One has always let the other down, which is unfortunate," Boucher said. "This is a cause for concern, and it is certainly something that we need to address as a franchise."

Mumbai Indians' disappointing IPL 2024 campaign, which culminated in a tenth-place finish, has been attributed to the negative fan reaction to the change in captaincy from Rohit Sharma to Hardik Pandya, according to head coach Mark Boucher.The team's performance suffered as the crowd's disapproval of Pandya's leadership became evident. Boucher expressed sympathy for Pandya, acknowledging that the off-field distractions may have affected his on-field performances."It wasn't great hearing all the boos," Boucher said. "Certainly, I felt sorry for Hardik as well. It's never nice to go through something like that."Boucher admitted that the team's performance was below par and that changes need to be made. He emphasized the need to address both on-field and off-field issues to improve the team's performance in the future."There are certain things that did affect individuals, which ultimately did affect the team," Boucher said. "So those are the sort of things we need to sit down and address and hopefully make some good calls going forward as well to address the off-field stuff."Despite the challenges, Boucher believes that Pandya has the potential to be a successful captain. He highlighted Pandya's support within the dressing room and expressed confidence that he will learn from this experience."He certainly had a lot of support within our dressing room but it's a tough thing to go through as a player," Boucher said. "There's a lot of sympathy for what he's going through. A lot of the stuff he is going through is, I think, uncalled for."Regarding Rohit Sharma's future with the franchise, Boucher stated that no decision has been made. He emphasized that Sharma is in control of his own destiny and that the team will have to wait and see what happens in the upcoming auction.