After commencing his campaign with the Mumbai Indians, Hardik Pandya has found himself in a horde of disputes from the Mumbai Indians fans. The skipper's decision to bowl the opening over instead of Jasprit Bumrah has sparked a massive outcry among the fans. Moreover, Pandya came out to bat at number seven, which was another disputable moment of the night. But the franchise batting coach, Keiron Pollard, has said that the moves were not his decision and that the decisions were made as per the team's decision.

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Keiron Pollard clears the air over MI's questionable tactics

Mumbai Indians' batting mentor Kieron Pollard supported Hardik Pandya's transition to open the bowling rather than Jasprit Bumrah and said the captain batting at number seven in their IPL opener against Gujarat Titans was an aggregate choice. A baffling batting system saw MI lose their opener by six pursues here on Sunday, they looked on course for triumph. When the topic of Hardik's decision to bat at number seven came up, Pollard stated that one could not attribute the decision to the skipper.

"You have to plan and decide what you want to do as a team. Hardik (Pandya) has also bowled with the new ball for Gujarat over the last couple of years. He swung the new ball and bowled it well, which was nothing new to us.

"We tried to use the advantage of the new ball swinging along. When I look at the decision made, there is nothing wrong with it, and we move on," Pollard said at the post-match press conference.

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"No decision is made on full autonomy, so we can't say it is his decision. As a team, we have plans; we talk about setting entry points for batters. The top order batted deep into the game, and we also had two power hitters to go in the back end.

"Usually, if you look at it over time, Tim (David) has finished games for us, and Hardik has done it over the years.

"So, at any point, any one of them can resurrect the situation. It didn't happen tonight, so there will likely be a chat about who should have gone earlier.

"But all of those things are in hindsight, and as a team, we make decisions, so let's put a stop to 'Hardik made a decision, Hardik did this, Hardik did that'. We are a team. We make decisions collectively as one," the West Indian added.