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Former India cricketer Praveen Kumar has made a serious allegation about Hardik Pandya and his fitness a day after the India all-rounder joined the Mumbai Indians camp to begin his preparations for the season. 2024 of the Indian Premier League (IPL), where he will lead the five. -time champions. Praveen trashed Hardik alleging that he has shown a pattern of getting injured two months before the IPL and is not turning out for the national team, Baroda, or his country, as he is concentrating on making money from his participation in the league. .
This is not the first time the cricket fraternity has come across such conversations surrounding Hardik. Apart from being a regular buzz on social media whenever Hardik suffered an injury over the last few years, veteran Indian all-rounder Irfan Pathan was the first to openly raise the issue from the cricket fraternity when Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan had faced the wrath of the BCCI for prioritizing the IPL over domestic cricket as the two were dropped from central contracts. Both Ishan and Iyer, during their time away from national service, turned a blind eye to the board’s repeated order to participate in the ongoing Ranji Trophy season. Therefore, in an unprecedented step, the BCCI removed both from the annual advances for the 2023/24 season.
However, talking about X, Pathan questioned why Hardik, who does not play domestic white-ball matches for Baroda during his time away from the Indian team, was receiving special treatment from the BCCI.
“They are talented cricketers, both Shreyas and Ishan. Hoping they recover and come back stronger. If players like Hardik don’t want to play red-ball cricket, should he and others like him participate in domestic white-ball cricket when they are not on national duty? If this does not apply to all, then Indian cricket will not achieve the desired results,” he wrote.
Speaking on the same lines, in a clip that went viral on social media, Praveen criticized Hardik for giving more preference to playing IPL and earning a lot of money than playing for the country or his national team.
“You get injured two months before the IPL, you don’t play for the country, you don’t play for your state in domestic cricket and you just play straight in the IPL. That’s not how things should be done. It’s okay to make money, there’s no “Nothing wrong with that. But you have to play for the state and the country and now people only give importance to the IPL,” Praveen said.
Praveen’s response came in a question on whether Mumbai Indians were right in removing Rohit Sharma, who led them to five IPL titles, from the captaincy and naming Hardik as their new leader.
Even though the franchise attributed the reason to Rohit’s declining numbers with the bat in the last few seasons, the former Mumbai Indians bowler felt that the Indian captain could have continued to lead the team for another three years.
“Yes, Rohit can do it. Not just for one year, but he can do it for two years, three years. But in the end the decision is in the hands of the management,” says the 37-year-old.
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