TOI understands that Pant wants to focus on cricket with a crucial international season coming up. He was also recently removed as Test vicecaptain, besides being dropped from the ODI side after spending two years on the bench with Team India.
“Pant wants to have a clear head going forward. He has staged many strong comebacks in his career. At the moment, his focus is to be the best cricketer that he can be and help his team win. A good international season can help his confidence going into the next IPL. He had bounced back from a poor IPL last year and had a stellar Test series in England. The LSG management believes if he can regain that momentum, that may help him going forward,” sources close to the development told TOI . “It’s better for both the franchise and Pant to take some time out and calm down before planning for the next season,” sources added.
A formal announcement of Hardik’s exit as MI captain may also not be too long in coming. “Yes, Hardik is done with MI and is exiting the franchise. He has had enough. He could either go to Delhi Capitals, who could trade their captain and India leftarm spinner Axar Patel for him, or he could be traded to KKR against Cameron Green or Varun Chakravarthy or Rinku Singh. However, don’t rule out some other franchise being interested in him,” a source told TOI on Friday.
Another source revealed that “During a mid-season review, a senior player suggested that India’s young batter Tilak Varma, who has been with MI for a few years now, is the ideal person to be appointed captain next year. However, India’s T20 captain Suryakumar Yadav and pacer Jasprit Bumrah, who made his IPL captaincy debut for MI this season in one game, are also MI captaincy candidates. The management is also likely to phase out a senior batter and give him a ‘different’ role. Basically, MI need a reset, and that refresh button needs to be pressed as soon as possible,” the source told TOI .
While both Surya and Bumrah could be strong candidates, Surya’s prolonged lean patch and the need to manage Bumrah’s workload would have to be considered before a final call.
The buzz is that Pandya and Pant may not be the only two IPL captains who could end up losing their crowns. Some other captains may also face tough questions from disappointed managements.