'Block it out, it's all irrelevant' - Steve Smith to Hardik Pandya on crowd abuse

Australian batter Steven Smith has suggested Hardik Pandya simply “block out” the trolls and the abuse he has been getting from fans at the IPL so far as well. However, ever since he has replaced Rohit Sharma as the Mumbai Indians captain, fans abused him a lot. It increased following their two back-to-back defeats in the ongoing IPL 2024 as well.

Smith, however, said that Hardik Pandya needed support from his teammates at Mumbai Indians, including from Rohit Sharma.

“I’d try and just say, to block it out, it’s all irrelevant,” Smith said on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show. “No one outside knows what you are going through. No one [from outside] is in that change room.”

Hardik Pandya faces backlash from fans

However, Steve Smith suggested that Hardik Pandya might have been surprised at the reception because it is not always India’s top players faced by fans as well.

“So is it affecting him [Hardik]? Maybe. It’s possible. He probably hasn’t experienced that before in, in any walk of life. So it’s natural, I suppose, and particularly being in India and a star Indian player, to be in that position where some fans are booing you, it’s certainly something he wouldn’t have experienced.”

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However, for Mumbai Indians, it has been a poor start so far in IPL 2024, where they first faced a defeat to Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad, and then in Hyderabad where Sunrisers Hyderabad registered the highest IPL total as well, which Mumbai lost by 31 runs. Smith also said that while he could understand the Ahmedabad crowd abused Hardik as he left Titans to rejoin Mumbai Indians. However, he failed to get the “context” of why the Indian all-rounder faced all the trolls in Hyderabad as well.

“Hardik is in the middle of a challenging time, losing the first two games their IPL season. It’s a big one for him. He’s filling big shoes with Rohit Sharma, who’s been the most successful captain [with Dhoni] in IPL history, lifting five titles, and it hasn’t started well for him. So he’s under a little bit of pressure at the moment and it’ll be interesting to see what the reception’s like in their first home game at Wankhede in a couple of days’ time,” he shared.

“I’m sure he is going to learn from that” – Steve Smith on Hardik Pandya

“We have heard a few boos going around at the grounds, which… that’s been disappointing from my aspect. But I’m intrigued to see what the reception’s like in Mumbai. We know how big a star Rohit is and how much he is loved inside that stadium,” he again stated.

“I’m sure he is going to learn from that. As a captain, you have to have plans in place for the start of the game. And clearly the plan was to bowl Bumrah straight up to Heinrich Klassen. But you’ve got to shift your plans when things aren’t going well. And it didn’t look like they shifted. They sort of just kept doing the same thing. It was a bit of a blunder in his first outings,” Steve Smith concluded.