What the booing of Hardik Pandya says about IPL fans

After his team lost at the Wankhede, the IPL team captain laid into the crowd at the Mumbai stadium. He started his post-match press conference by saying that he didn’t know “what is wrong with the people at this venue”.

“It feels a bit weird because at the end of the day you play for India and you don't come here to be hated….I don't know why they get so worked up during the IPL.

“IPL is not the end of the world. They forget that the players they are booing for also play for their country,” the captain said.

That was Virat Kohli on the night of April 27, 2013 after he faced jeers for not calling back a Mumbai Indians batter who was run out after colliding with a RCB bowler.

“It is only creating hatred among the players. When I come back and play for India, they are going to cheer for me. It doesn't work that way," he said.

medium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coHkis2--H8

Nearly a decade later, Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya was booed roundly by the Wankhede crowd through his first home game on April 1 after taking over as captain. However, in his post-match interaction with commentators the issue was never addressed barring when a commentator asked him to cheer up.

“Seen better days but seen worse days as well. I don’t think much of the things surprises me any more. As a group, we believe we can pull off a lot of better things going forward,” he said.

A captain struggles to make sense

Unlike Kohli who may have been able to criticise the crowd, Pandya doesn’t have the same luxury. Any clapback could make it impossible for him to lead the team in their next home game.

The reaction of Wankhede fans was no surprise. Given the reception he received in the first two games of IPL 2024 at Ahmedabad and Hyderabad, it seemed certain Pandya would receive the most hostile reception in Mumbai.

When this correspondent met him at a practice session before the match, the 30-year-old appeared relaxed. Those who know him closely say that he was ready to face the Wankhede crowd’s ire, but the massive backlash has taken him by surprise.

“Has it ever happened to anyone in the cricketing world before?” Pandya is said to have asked a source, who struggled to come up with a precedent.

Taking over as Mumbai Indians captain has come with more than chants and jeers from fans. The Mumbai team has suffered defeats in all three of its opening games and is at the bottom of the IPL table.

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On April 1, the booing began the moment cricketer-turned-commentator Sanjay Manjrekar announced Pandya’s name at the toss. As the jeers rose in volume, Manjrekar said ‘Behave!’ to the crowd, perhaps a first.

It wasn’t all jeers though. The Wankhede crowd cheered when Pandya came up with some thumping strikes, hammering six fours in his 21-ball 34-run cameo that gave his team a total to defend.

However, when he returned to the field for the second innings, the stadium resounded with boos that continued well after the match ended. This was despite the fact that the 30-year-old didn’t bowl a single over on the night.

The one positive takeaway may have been his predecessor’s gesture to the Wankhede crowd, telling them not to target Pandya.

The targeting of Pandya so far during this IPL, and the abuse on social media is a good example of how double-edged fandom in Indian cricket is presently. Till IPL 2024, fan groups of Sharma mostly engaged in online battles with Kohli’s fans.

medium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYoFj96ePow

Sharma’s fans turned on Pandya after he was announced as the Mumbai captain. The all-rounder, it would seem, has little support from the fans, but thankfully has received some from other cricketers.

The only Indian teammate of Pandya’s who has spoken up publicly against this unwanted trend is off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin . Ashwin said that neither the franchise nor the player is at fault, and that the wars between fan groups in India have been turning ugly for a while now.

"Have you seen this in any other country, where Joe Root and Zak Crawley fans are fighting? It's crazy, I don't understand. Do Steve Smith and Pat Cummins fans fight in Australia? “ Ashwin said

The off-spinner from Chennai pointed out that what we’re seeing in cricket is a lot like what is often seen on social media between fawning fan groups of film stars.

“These guys are our own cricketers. Why do you boo your own player?" said Ashwin.

A refusal to move on

A dangerous trend emerging from this whole fiasco is the fans’ refusal to accept new heroes and move on from past glories. Heroes are viewed as irreplaceable, even if their powers have waned and they’re at the end of their careers.

In such a scenario, which selection committee will want to take a call on moving on from a big star, even if their time is clearly up? When India exited the 2019 World Cup in the semifinals, the MSK Prasad-led national selection committee told MS Dhoni that his time with Team India was up, and they would give Rishabh Pant a good run of games.

However, fearing a backlash from Dhoni’s fans, they were very guarded about the call. Pant then went through many matches in which every error prompted chants of Dhoni’s name from spectators.

medium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia2nG0Xovxc

In the present scenario, Sharma is 36 years old, while Kohli is just a year younger. Both could go on to play for a few more years, but what if their performances do eventually begin to dip? After all, one day even they will have to walk into the sunset, like greats of the sport before them. Will sentiment, and not pure performance, decide their longevity?

The owners of Mumbai Indians could have handled the switch in captaincy from Pandya to Rohit better by keeping the Indian captain in the loop. It is fair to question the move since Rohit has led the team to five IPL titles.

Admittedly, Pandya’s captaincy has been poor in the first three games of this year’s IPL. The decision to come in as late as No 7 in the first game (when he used to bat mostly at No 4 for GT), holding back ace pacer Jasprit Bumrah in the powerplay of the second game and sending Dewald Brevis as an Impact Player in the second over after MI lost two early wickets in the third game, didn’t seem very inspired decisions.

However, none of this justifies the argument that Mumbai Indians shouldn’t have changed captains. It’s a fact that Rohit has had some pretty ordinary IPLs in the past few years.

While Pandya led the Gujarat Titans to the title in 2022, Mumbai finished at the bottom of the table. In 2023, Gujarat beat Mumbai in an eliminator to make it to the finals where the team lost by the narrowest of margins.

A look at their batting performances over the past two seasons is also pretty telling. Pandya outperformed the former Mumbai captain in both seasons: