'Utsav ki taiyari karo' - Twitter trolls Krunal Pandya after MI drop him from XI against RR

Mumbai Indians (MI) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) have locked horns in a must-win encounter of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) season in the UAE. While MI will have to win both their remaining matches and also hope for other results to go their way, the Royals have their qualification in their hands still. However, the team losing this game is certain to go home thanks to their poor net run-rate.

MI haven’t been in great form in the UAE leg and lost four games out of five so far. For the same reason, they took some harsh calls and decided to bench Quinton de Kock and Krunal Pandya. Ishan Kishan has been slotted to open the innings while Neesham will play the role of an all-rounder in place of Krunal. While many were surprised to see De Kock being dropped, few felt it was a right move to drop Krunal.

The all-rounder has bene dropped for the first time after the 2017 season as he was not performing to his abilities this year. He hasn’t delivered as expected in both the departments mustering only 134 runs in 11 innings and picking only five wickets in 32.1 overs at an average of close to 50. Clearly, he wasn’t in his grooves and MI had to bench him with time running out in terms of making it to the playoffs.

Not a great season for MI

The five-time champions won the 2019 and 2020 IPL seasons but they haven’t been able to string together good performances this time around. It took some time for them to get going during the India leg but with the tournament getting postponed, they lost all the momentum. However, with the IPL returning to the UAE, a lot of experts backed them to at least make it to the playoffs.

Nobody had predicted their struggle given the fact that MI had won the 2020 IPL season easily. But the team work is lacking for them this year. Meanwhile, Twitter was busy trolling Krunal Pandya after he was dropped from the playing XI.

Here’s how Twitter reacted: