Heena Sharma Blog

  Mumbai Indians all-rounder Hardik Pandya has become the first player in the ongoing Indian Premier League to take a knee in support of the ' Black Lives Matter ' movement. Pandya's gesture came during the game against Rajasthan Royals here on Sunday. The all-rounder smashed 60 run from just 21 balls. After reaching his half century in the 19th over, he went down on a knee with his right arm raised to show solidarity with the movement against racism. West Indies all-rounder and Mumbai's stand-in skipper Kieron Pollard responded by raising his right fist. After the match Pandya even tweeted a picture of himself with the caption "#BlackLivesMatter". Last week, West Indies Test skipper Jason Holder, who plays for the Sunrisers Hyderbad, had expressed his disappointment over none of the IPL teams taking a knee in solidarity with the movement, which, he felt, went unnoticed in the league. Read More

"The ball was not in my court," said Hardik Pandya as he sought to explain his outrageous comments on women in a TV show that led to his suspension and an outpouring of condemnation last year. Pandya, along with teammate K L Rahul, drew a lot of flak after their loose talk on women on ' Koffee with Karan ' went viral, prompting the BCCI to suspend them and institute an inquiry into their conduct. In his latest statement on the episode, Pandya said things were not particularly in his control during the interview. "We as cricketers did not know what was going to happen. The ball was not in my court, it was in someone else's court where they had to take the shot and that's a very vulnerable place, you don't want to be (in it)," Pandya told India Today's show 'Inspiration'. Pandya and Rahul were called back from an ongoing series against Australia at that time and their captain Virat Kohli too was openly critical of their c...

Indian Premier League (IPL) defending champions Mumbai Indians (MI) have released 12 of their players from last season ahead of IPL 2020 players’ auction, to be held in Kolkata on Dec 19. They have retained 18 players. The Mumbai franchise retained their core team, including veteran Sri Lankan fast bowler Lasith Malinga, despite his fitness issues. Among the 12 released players, Evin Lewis, Jason Behrendoff and Alzarri Joseph were the most prominent ones as they made some match-winning contributions last season. Lewis had given a flying start to the team during the powerplay in several matches, while Behrendoff had taken 6 wickets against Rajasthan Royals in a low-scoring game to provide his team a crucial win last season. Yuvraj Singh, who retired from all forms of cricket, including IPL, earlier this year, has also been released by MI. New Zealand pacer Trent Boult, West Indian Sherfance Rutherford and Mumbai pacer Dhawal Kulkarni were traded in by the franchise, owned by...

India and Mumbai Indians all-rounder Hardik Pandya termed the last seven months as the toughest period of his life when he "did not know what to do" in the wake of the controversy surrounding his outrage-evoking comments on women. Pandya, who helped MI beat Chennai Super Kings in an IPL game in Mumbai, was initially suspended by the BCCI and sent back to India from the Australia tour following his comments on a chat show earlier this year. Later, the suspension was provisionally lifted pending an inquiry. The 25-year-old said he has left behind the controversy. "It feels pretty good to help the team to win and contribute. It's been seven months that I've hardly played games. They weren't easy and I didn't know what to do. I've just batted and batted. I want to improve my game every day. It's a fantastic feeling batting like that and making your team win," he said. Pandya, who smashed an 8-ball 25 not out and then picked up three...

Only last week I had written about Hardik Pandya being one of the hottest brand endorsement candidates among cricketers for 2019. In a blog in Campaign, I had written about how in 2018 Pandya featured in ads for Gulf Oil, Gillette, Zaggle, Sin Denim, D:FY, boAt and Oppo. He was also recently seen in an ad for Star TV alongside M S Dhoni that notched up over 6 million YouTube views in just over a week. Nothing, but nothing, could go wrong for the all-rounder who holds the record for scoring the most number of runs (26) in a single over of a Test innings for India. But now in just a week, Pandya has gone from hero to zero. Accused, trolled, crucified for being misogynistic. Shobhaa De in fact called him, “…vile, racist, sexist, immature, annoying, egotistic, narcissistic and more…”. Such venom! On Koffee with Karan on January 6, Hardik Pandya (who was on the show with K L Rahul) boasted about hooking up with multiple women and even spoke about how open he is with his parents. ...