The IPL may be more business than cricket at times and the Gujarat Titans may stand to benefit financially from the Hardik Pandya trade deal, but purely from a cricketing perspective, this is a landslide victory for the Mumbai Indians, writes Naman Agarwal.
It’s no secret that the Indian Premier League is more than just the cricket that happens on the field. Cricket might be the centre of attention, but winning games isn’t always at the centre of decision-making. Making money – lots of it – is usually the driving force behind most decisions, be it at the board level or the franchise level.
Gujarat swapping their title-winning captain with Mumbai in a cash deal is a case in point.
In the player draft ahead of the IPL 2022 mega auction, the Titans signed Pandya, who was released by Mumbai Indians, as their captain for Rs 1.50 crore. He led the team to victory in his first season and narrowly missed out on replicating that success in his second season.
During that time, he batted in the top order and opened the bowling, scoring over 800 runs at almost 38 and taking 11 wickets at 8.1 runs per over. Gujarat’s Pandya was as close to a complete T20 cricketer as possible. Nevertheless, they returned him to Mumbai Indians for a price of $1.5 billion plus an undisclosed ‘transfer fee’ ahead of the 2024 IPL auction.
Unless this fee is a multiple of Pandya’s official price, this deal makes no sense for Gujarat. Even if it were (as rumor has it, it should be), and even playing devil’s advocate, it’s hard to make a strong case that Gujarat would get anything other than a potentially fat check. Probably.
The category of cricketers represented by Pandya is perhaps the most popular category in the sport. You don’t have to be anextraordinaryfast bowling all-rounder to make big bucks, especially if you’re from India, a market where this resource is shockingly scarce. But if you’re one of the best players in the country and the best in the world, plus you have leadership skills, ideally the franchise will do everything they can to keep you.
However, in less than ideal conditions in the IPL, Pandya was dismissed for the second time in his career, twice as he should have been. The first was when Mumbai decided to retain the aging Kieron Pollard ahead of Pandya ahead of the 2022 mega-auction, and the second was when they apparently realized their mistake and essentially That’s when we brought him back from Gujarat.
Over the years, there have been countless examples of teams signing top players without considering how they fit into the team. As a result, resources were not used optimally and teams had to release these players. This was not the case in Pandya and Gujarat. In fact, that’s impossible for someone like him.
<iframe Loading=”lazy” style=”border-radius: 12px;” src=”https://open.spotify.com/embed/show/1XeleYXleZeyGRpmoG2Nzw?utm_source=generator” width=”100%” height=”232″ Frameborder=”0″allowfullscreen=”allowfullscreen”></iframe> ;
Rather than trying to accommodate Pandya, the team strategized and built its organization around players who matched Pandya’s skills and talent. Gujarat itself has done this. Pandya played a pivotal role in the composition of teams in all departments. While other players are batting around him, he keeps their shots together, sets the tone with new balls, and swings in both directions to build pressure and allow others to benefit. did.
From now on, he will do everything for Mumbai. Mumbai already has an ensemble cast including Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Verma, Tim David and Jasprit Bumrah. Gujarat, on the other hand, will participate in the auction alone and hope to be able to cobble together multiple signings to match their offer for the player. This is similar to Robinhood trading, but in reverse.
To make the deal with Pandya happen, Mumbai needed to keep the money in a bank (like on the table rather than under the bank). In a last-minute deal, they swapped Cam Green to Royal Challengers Bangalore for Rs 1.75 crore, paving the way for Pandya’s return.
Mumbai acquired Green in a mini-auction last season but could not find an ideal role for him with either bat or ball. He would fly around the batting order, often bowling just to fill in the overs. With Pandya, both of these problems are solved. He can quickly revert to his No. 5 to bat for India in T20Is with Tilak and David on either side and receive the new ball alongside Bumrah.
Also, there is a bit of captaincy. Rohit Sharma’s future in the shortest format is uncertain. He is over his 36 years and Mumbai needed a leadership succession plan. IPL teams often struggle to find a captain, but Mumbai has the potential to lead India in his next T20 World Cup from his IPL winning team that led India in his last T20 World Cup. I definitely moved to a certain team.
Gujarat can find their way into the top teams of IPL in the future as well. They might find a way to beat Mumbai the next time they face each other on the field. But for now, they are being beaten fair and square on the field.
Subscribe to the Wisden Cricket YouTube channel for post-match analysis, player interviews, and much more.
