Vimal Kumar, a veteran journalist shed more light on the dynamics existing between Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya before the T20 World Cup 2024 practice. Vimal said that Rohit and Hardik spent much time on some benches talking with one another, making sure that the team was also going there in a good mood.
USA and West Indies hosted the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, which was won by India after beating South Africa in the final match held in Barbados by just seven runs. Both captain Rohit Sharma (as player) and all-rounder Pandya played an important role in their victory that ended a long dry spell of 11 years without winning any ICC tournaments for India.
Before the T20 World Cup, various media reports were indicating an alleged rift between Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya due to IPL 2024, when Mumbai Indians replaced him with Pandya as Captain (MI). Journalist Kumar however illustrates how these two star players’ relationships improved ahead of the event in his podcast ‘2 Sloggers’. Kumar said, as quoted by NDTV:
“When I went to the nets, on the first day I saw they were standing far apart and did not talk to each other. But by the second day, I saw them come over, one after the other, and sit together in a corner, talking for a long time.”
”That moment for me defined this team. There was no camera there; nothing. The way Rohit and Hardik were talking, I was like ‘what am I watching?’.”
THE HUG BETWEEN CAPTAIN ROHIT SHARMA AND HARDIK PANDYA 🇮🇳😭. pic.twitter.com/lSmBV5H7cW
— Vishal. (@SPORTYVISHAL) June 29, 2024
The reporter felt that the very honest communication with Rohit and Pandya had gone a long way towards allaying some of those very nerves into which their cricket team had been tossing and turning before the tournament began.
“There is so much going on in India with the public talking about their differences. After that, for the next three days, Rohit and Hardik would bat parallelly. And then Rohit would point out about his batting, bowling.”
”When I saw that atmosphere and thought if they addressed such a complex issue, the elephant in the room. That vibe I saw demonstrated how relaxed the team atmosphere was,” he added.
During 2024 T20 World Cup, India never lost any match. They performed very well during both group stage and super 8 rounds before winning with a huge margin over England by a whopping 68 runs in the semi finals played at Guyana while they defeated South Africa during finals.
Rohit and Pandya’s statistics for the 2024 T20 World Cup
Out of this point of view leading by example, Rohit made runs in numbers 257 from 8 innings with an average equal to 36.71 and strike rate around 156.71 along with three fifties which is among others his unparalleled 92 against Australia.
On the other hand, during eight games Pandya had 11 wickets at an average of 17.36 with 7.64 being his economic rate while with the bat he showed class by scoring 50 off 27 balls versus Bangladesh, 27 runs at 17 balls against Australian team and also accumulated 23 runs at 13 balls versus English team in the semifinal match.
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