Sunil Gavaskar's no-nonsense take on Hardik Pandya replacing Rohit Sharma as Mumbai Indians captain

Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar has backed Mumbai Indians’ decision to make Hardik Pandya their captain, replacing Rohit Sharma. Gavaskar believes the move came keeping in mind the long-term goals of the franchise. He also spoke about how Mumbai has always been a forward-thinking franchise, adding that Rohit may now play freely in the IPL, especially since he has been facing the rigours of captaining India in all three formats. In one of the major coups in IPL history, Hardik Pandya rejoined Mumbai Indians in late November 2023, just four days before the 2024 auctions. He was subsequently unveiled as the new captain , ending Rohit’s decade-long tenure at the helm. Read: Why MI went with Hardik as captain for IPL 2024 over Rohit? “Handing Hardik, the captaincy is only going to benefit the Mumbai Indians. They have now given the freedom to Rohit to go and express himself freely at the top of the order. Hardik can then come at No.3 or No.5 and help them post totals of 200-plus consistently,” Gavaskar said on Star Sports. Interestingly, Hardik was not retained by Mumbai Indians ahead of IPL 2022, and he was appointed captain of the new team Gujarat Titans. It was under his leadership that Gujrat clinched the title in their first IPL season in 2022 and made it to the final in 2023, where they lost to Chennai Super Kings. Mark Boucher, the head coach of Mumbai Indians, has already spoken about this transition and the rationale behind replacing Rohit, who led the side to five IPL titles during his 10-year tenure. As per Boucher, the decision was purely cricket-based and was made keeping in mind optimising Rohit’s batting capabilities. However, Rohit’s wife, Ritika Sajdeh, took a veiled dig at this explanation. As far as numbers go, Rohit has struggled with the bat in the league for three years now and could have been one of the reasons Hardik was chosen to lead the side. The announcement of Rohit’s replacement was quite a significant moment and it disappointed a huge chunk of Mumbai Indians’ fanbase. This saw the franchise losing 400,000 followers on ‘X’ within an hour of the announcement.