Rohit Sharma and many Mumbai Indians fans are unhappy with the franchise removing Sharma as their skipper, who led them to 5 IPL titles.
On Friday, Mumbai Indians announced Hardik Pandya as their new skipper ahead of the IPL 2024 auction. This announcement comes only 20 days after Pandya was traded back to MI, where he spent 7 seasons from 2015 to 2021, after spending two successful seasons at the Gujarat Titans.
Pandya led GT to two IPL finals in a row, winning one in 2022 and losing the IPL 2023 final on the last ball to CSK.
It has now been reported that the talks of the trade between Hardik Pandya and the Mumbai Indians started after IPL 2023 was completed, in which MI failed to reach an IPL final for the third season in a row.
The Indian Express has even reported that Rohit Sharma was informed before the World Cup 2023 that Hardik Pandya would take over the MI captaincy. The report added that Hardik had set a precondition for his return that would immediately take over the captaincy. Hardik agreed to the trade only on the condition that he would be Mumbai’s new captain for IPL 2024 season.
The fans of Rohit Sharma were certainly not happy with this decision of the franchise deciding to replace Rohit as their captain even while Rohit is still playing and active player, and showed great form in the World Cup.
Fans of Rohit Sharma express anger and outrage on social media by unfollowing Mumbai Indians
This led to the Rohit fans unfollowing MI on Twitter and Instagram. It is believed and reported that MI lost 400k followers on Twitter and over 200k followers on Instagram after the announcement of Hardik Pandya as the franchise’s new captain.
All of Mumbai’s 5 IPL titles have come under Rohit Sharma’s captaincy.
Mahela Jayawardene, the Global Head of Performance at Mumbai Indians, said: “We express our gratitude to Rohit Sharma for his exceptional leadership; his tenure as the captain of the Mumbai Indians since 2013 has been nothing short of extraordinary. His leadership has not only brought unparalleled success to the team but has also solidified his place as one of the finest captains in the history of the IPL.”
