Watch: Hardik Pandya has heated exchange with Mohammed Shami during GT vs SRH IPL match
The Indian Premier League is one of the most competitive T20 leagues in the world, more so this year when there are 10 teams instead of the regular 8 trying to vie for the elusive crown. A lot of matches this season have gone down the wire which heaps a ton of pressure on the players, which leads to some not so civil exchanges during teammates.
Monday’s match between Gujarat Titans and Sunrisers Hyderabad also saw an incident like this when the Titans’ captain Hardik Pandya was seen visibly frustrated with teammate Mohammed Shami when they were defending a total of 163 runs.
Pandya came in to bowl the 13th over of the innings and had a chance to snare SRH batter Rahul Tripathi off the last ball of the over when the he tried to hit a lofted shot that went to deep third man where Shami was standing. It looked like he could have completed the catch had he ran forward but Shami stayed where he was and moved back a couple of steps to collect the ball on the bounce.
C…. @hardikpandya7 U R Only Makely Making GT Captain,Not A Legend Player,Please Respect Senior AND Legend Player @MdShami11 pic.twitter.com/r2XGNFqIq8
— Vicky More(Srk Fan) (@srk_fan_vicky) April 11, 2022
A visibly enraged Pandya was seen shouting at Shami after that and the Gujarat Titans went on to lose the match 8 wickets, their first defeat in the IPL.
The Sunrisers chased down the target of 163 with five balls to spare with captain Kane Williamson top-scoring with a 57 while Nicholas Pooran remained not out on 34. Young Abhishek Sharma made 42 at the top of the order before retiring hurt.
For the Titans, Pandya and Rashid Khan took a wicket each. Earlier, captain Pandya top-scored for the Titans with a 42-ball 50 not out while Abhinav Manohar chipped in with 35. For SRH, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and T Natarajan took two wickets apiece while Marco Jansen and Umran Malik got one each.
