In a climax similar to a nail-biting IPL game, the Hardik Pandya transfer underwent quite a few twists and turns before he finally returned to his original franchise, the Mumbai Indians.
Pandya was snapped up by MI after an all-cash deal trade-off with Gujarat Titans, following 72 hours of intense drama.
The deal looked to have collapsed when Pandya was officially named in Gujarat Titans' retained players list for IPL 2024, but behind the scenes MI and Titans were engaged in hectic negotiations to make the transfer happen.
When the window for retention and release of players for IPL players closed at 5 pm IST on Sunday, Hardik was still part of Titans with many wondering whether the transfer to MI had suddenly collapsed.
In fact, MI were simultaneously working on another big transfer. They were engaged in trying to trade Australia all-rounder Cameron Green to the Royal Challengers Bangalore in an all-cash deal.
Even if the deadline for player retention and release ended on Sunday, the teams can still trade players till December 12 -- one week ahead of the IPL mini auction in Dubai on December 19.
Once Green's deal was secured, MI moved in swiftly to get Hardik to seal arguably the most talked-about player transfer in IPL history.
Hardik's return to MI was totally unexpected after he moved to Titans following seven seasons at the five-time IPL champions, whom he had joined for Rs 10 lakh (Rs 1 million) in 2015 as an uncapped player.
He won four IPL titles with MI -- in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020. The all-rounder was released ahead of the mega IPL auction in 2022 as MI were allowed to retain only four players and they went with Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah and Kieron Pollard.
Despite Hardik struggling with injuries, Titans moved in swiftly to sign him in the draft ahead of the 2022 mega auction.
Taking over the captaincy, Hardik led Titans to the IPL title in their debut season last year. This year the Titans narrowly missed out on another title after losing a thrilling final against Chennai Super Kings.
Without Green's transfer, MI wouldn't have been able to buy back Hardik, who was valued at Rs 15 crore (Rs 150 million).
Mumbai released as many as 11 players, including Jofra Archer before the deadline on Sunday, which saw them add Rs 15.25 crore (Rs 152.5 million) to their kitty before they added another Rs 17.5 crore (Rs 175 million) through Green's sale to RCB.
Hardik's transfer means the stage could be set for Shubman Gill to take over as Titans captain for IPL 2024, unless the franchise promote vice-captain Rashid Khan to that role.
Hardik could also be in line to take over the MI captaincy from Rohit Sharma after he retires from T20s.
