AB de Villiers has backpedaled from his previous comments on Hardik Pandya’s style of captaincy. The former Royal Challengers Bengaluru star had claimed that the Mumbai Indians skipper’s method of leadership was ego-driven. He’d made those comments a couple of days ago on his YouTube channel but is now claiming that he was taken out of context.
Hardik Pandya, a brave captain, says AB de Villiers
ABD took to X (formerly Twitter) to clarify his stance, claiming that media outlets have misrepresented what he’d said. He added that he loves the way Hardik Pandya plays the game and captains. The former South African justified that the reason he said that Hardik Pandya wasn’t acting genuine was because of his own experience as a captain.
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What ABD had said about Pandya’s captain
AB de Villiers had claimed that Hardik was putting on an act. He was displaying bravado every time he went on the field, but that isn’t exactly what he was. He also claimed that his style of captain might have worked in Gujarat Titans with youngsters but probably won’t work in Mumbai Indians with senior guys like Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, and Suryakumar Yadav.
“The captaincy style of Hardik Pandya is quite bravado. It’s ego-driven in a way; chest out. I don’t think how he walks on the field is always genuine, but he has decided that is his way of captaincy. Almost like MS. Cool, calm, and collective, always got your chest out. But when you play with a lot of experienced players, guys who have been around for ages. They don’t buy into that. It worked at GT, where it was a younger team. Sometimes, inexperienced players love to follow that kind of leadership,” de Villiers said on May 8.
