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‘They Have Reasons’ - Ex-Batter On MI's Move To Replace Rohit Sharma With Hardik Pandya

Rohit Sharma and Mumbai Indians (X.com)Rohit Sharma and Mumbai Indians (X.com)

The Mumbai Indians team faced a major backlash from their fans ever since they announced Hardik Pandya as their new captain while replacing the most successful captain in the IPL tournament, Rohit Sharma.

Former Indian cricketer Anjum Chopra recently emphasised the mindset that team management must have had to replace Rohit as their captain. The MI team management’s plans of a smooth transition from Sharma to Pandya backfired as the fans did not take the news well.


Anjum Chopra On MI's Tactical Shift in captaincy from Rohit Sharma to Hardik Pandya

While talking to TOI, Chopra stressed how a player never walks into the team as a captain but has to work on it to step in and achieve the position. She also discussed that it wouldn’t have been easy for the team to replace a player like Rohit Sharma, but it was meant to happen someday.

Anjum Chopra said,

"A player's job is to play the game. You always walk into a team as a player. You never walk into a team as a captain. How we are seeing from the outside, how the franchise is looking at it from the inside, and now players are looking at it, they have their reasons. It wouldn't have been easy to replace a player and captain of Rohit Sharma's stature. But someday that will happen.”

While deciphering the appointment of Sharma as the captain, Chopra said that the opening batsman was handed over the responsibility because of his abilities. She also discussed how the team needs to keep a balance of things in both present and future.

She further added,

"When Rohit was given captaincy for Mumbai Indians, it wouldn't have been a very easy decision. At that time many stalwarts and experienced players were playing and Rohit was given the captaincy. MI gave him the captaincy because of his ability and Rohit went on to guide MI to five title wins. Let's not run into emotions. It's about balancing things considering the present and future of the team.”

Mumbai Indians will play their first match of IPL 2024 under the leadership of Hardik Pandya against his former franchise, Gujarat Titans on 24th March at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.

Mumbai Indians Full Squad for IPL 2024

Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Tim David, Ishan Kishan, N. Tilak Varma, Vishnu Vinod, Dewald Brevis, Arjun Tendulkar, Shams Mulani, Nehal Wadhera, Kumar Kartikeya, Piyush Chawla, Akash Madhwal, Jason Behrendorff, Romario Shepherd, Hardik Pandya (c), Jasprit Bumrah, Gerald Coetzee, Shreyas Gopal, Nuwan Thushara, Dilshan Madushanka, Naman Dhir, Anshul Kamboj, Mohammad Nabi, Shivalik Sharma.