Rohit Sharma was removed from MI's captaincy this year and Hardik Pandya was appointed as the new captain of the franchise.
An old tweet by Rohit Sharma recently has gone viral in which he was seen replying to his IPL franchise Mumbai Indians ‘Why don’t you inform me?’ It is understood that since Hardik Pandya has taken over Rohit Sharma as the Mumbai Indians captain, a large section of Mumbai Indians fanbase have criticized the franchise.
Rohit Sharma became MI’s captain in 2013. He took over the captaincy midway through the season from the seasoned campaigner Ricky Ponting. Mumbai Indians surprised everyone by winning the title that season and this was the start of the golden era for this franchise. Rohit went on to lead MI to five titles from 2013 to 2020. Along with MS Dhoni, Rohit has won the most IPL titles as captain.
What do you mean by new faces? Why don’t you guys inform me?
— Rohit Sharma (@ImRo45) March 22, 2018
In this old tweet of 2018, Mumbai Indians tweeted, “Prepare yourself to welcome new faces in our team” to which Rohit replied “What do you mean by new faces? Why don’t you guys inform me?” It seemed like the Indian captain had no idea about the new faces that the franchise was talking about.
MI coach Mark Boucher recently said to SmashSports podcast that he wants to get the best out of Rohit as a player. He says, “It’s just more of a cricketing decision that was made and I do think it is going to bring the best out of Rohit as a person as a player. Just let him go out and enjoy and score some good runs.”
“He’s been captaining for ages and he’s done really well for Mumbai Indians. Now he also leads India as well. It is that he walks into a place and there’s just cameras in it and he’s so busy and he hasn’t had probably the best couple of seasons of late with the bat but he’s done well as a captain,” Boucher further added.
After this, Rohit’s wife Ritika Sajdeh slammed Mark Boucher’s justification to remove Rohit Sharma as captain. She writes on the comments section of the SmashSports podcast, “So many things wrong with this.”
Surely, not everything seems right between MI management and Rohit Sharma. But for now, it is clear that Hardik Pandya will lead Mumbai Indians in IPL 2024 and Rohit Sharma will play purely as a batter. But can Mumbai Indians get back to their title winning days? That still remains to be seen.
