Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) mentor Gautam Gambhir has defended Hardik Pandya, who has taken a lot of criticism for leading the Mumbai Indians (MI) this season.

After AB de Villiers made some remarks about Hardik Pandya, Gambhir hit back at him. Since de Villiers has never led an Indian Premier League (IPL) squad, Gambhir claims he is unqualified to remark on Pandya's leadership role in an interview with Sportskeeda. After de Villiers claimed that the senior MI players did not buy into the concept of Hardik Pandya's character and that his on-field persona is "not a real one," Gambhir went on a tirade against him.

"It’s not important what experts are saying, it’s their job to say something or the other. My opinion has always been that you judge someone’s captaincy by his team's performance. If MI had performed well (this year), all experts would have been praising him. Today MI have not performed well and that’s why everyone is talking about it," Gambhir said on Sportskeeda.

"It’s important to realise that Hardik Pandya has come from some other franchise so it takes time, give him some time. Suddenly, you expect him to deliver at Mumbai, after captaining for two years at Gujarat. He could have delivered, I am not saying he couldn’t have but if he hasn’t, it’s fine, give him a bit more time," he added.

"Judging him every day, every match, everything is not right. Those experts who have criticised him, they should see their own performances when they have captained a side. Whether it’s AB de Villiers or Kevin Pietersen. I don't think in their career there is any performance of leadership, nothing. If you go and see their records, it’s worse than any other leader. So, you should compare oranges to oranges, not apples to oranges," Gambhir concluded.