Why Mumbai Indians went with Hardik Pandya as captain for IPL 2024 over Rohit Sharma?

The only thing that’s constant in life is change. All good things, as well as the bad ones, eventually have come to an end. For those who happen to support a certain team in the world’s biggest and richest T20 league, that moment arrived on Friday evening which marked the end of one era and the beginning of another. Mumbai Indians, one of two of the most successful and popular teams in the Indian Premier League, certainly know a thing or two about pulling off headline-grabbing moves. On 27 November, a day after the deadline for the franchises to announce their list of retained and released players, MI finally confirmed a development that had the entire cricketing community buzzing. That of bringing Hardik Pandya back into their fold after two years. They had pulled off the ultimate heist by prising Pandya out of the Gujarat Titans, a side that he had led to back-to-back IPL finals including a title on debut in 2022. Transfers aren’t an unusual sight in the Indian Premier League; they get all the more frequent closer to the IPL Retention Day, and can go on till the start of the next season — only briefly put on hold for a week leading to the player auction. Read | ‘Pandya’s return to Mumbai Indians may have hurt Bumrah’: Kris Srikkanth However, to take the captain away from a franchise that was beginning to chart a meteoric rise and challenge the established powers is what sets it apart from the other trades. GT had forged a successful captain-coach pairing in Pandya and Ashish Nehra and the two were tactically on point as they bulldozed their way to the title on debut in 2022 and nearly pulled off the rare feat of lifting the trophy in consecutive editions the following year. Less than three weeks later, however, they would make another announcement that would pale the previous one in terms of impact on the cricketing world in general and the IPL in particular. On Friday evening, MI officially named Pandya captain for the 2024 season, thus bringing Rohit’s trophy-filled, decade-long run as skipper finally to an end.

To new beginnings. Good luck, #CaptainPandya 💙 pic.twitter.com/qRH9ABz1PY

— Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) December 15, 2023

Pandya’s appointment obviously was a long-term move by the Nita and Akash Ambani-led management, who clearly saw him as a worthy successor to Rohit at MI once the latter decided to hand over the reins of the team the way Ricky Ponting did to him six matches into IPL 2013. However, not many were expecting the announcement to come so soon, with many an MI fan perhaps hopeful of Rohit leading their side to one more title before officially passing on the torch. So why exactly did Mumbai Indians opt for the transition from the 2024 season itself? We try and understand the whys in further detail below: Age no longer on Rohit’s side A widely accepted truth about cricket as well as a number of other sports such as football is that an athlete usually peaks around the mid-20s and opportunities start drying up once into the 30s. To make it as a professional cricketer in the mid-30s and beyond is indeed commendable and a testament to the player’s resolve as well as fitness levels. Rohit will turn 37 at the halfway stage of the 2024 season and that fact is not lost upon the powers that be at the Mumbai Indians. Sure, Rohit has had an incredible run as captain since he masterminded their maiden title in 2013 and is currently the joint-most successful captain in the league’s history alongside Chennai Super Kings skipper MS Dhoni with five titles. Read | Revisiting Rohit Sharma's trophy-laden reign as Mumbai Indians captain Rohit, however, cannot remain captain of a franchise forever, and the management will eventually start looking towards the future. Sure there are cases such as Dhoni, who will be touching the age of 43 when he leads CSK next season. Misbah-ul-Haq too had led Pakistan in his farewell Test in 2017 just days before his 43rd birthday. Such instances, however, are few and far between at the highest level of the sport. And even if Rohit has the passion to emulate Dhoni and Misbah and continue leading past the age of 40, it is highly unlikely that the franchise would be welcoming of that approach. There’s also the issue of Rohit’s personal form which might have played a role in the decision. Rohit’s numbers with the bat in recent seasons certainly do indicate a decline, even if it has been a steady one and not a freefall of sorts. [caption id=“attachment_10654071” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Rohit Sharma’s form in the Indian Premier League has been witnessing a steady decline in recent years. Sportzpics[/caption] There was a time when he used to lead from the front, which is established by the fact that his most productive season with the bat (538 runs at an average of 38.42) came all the way back in 2013 in his maiden run as captain. Rohit, however, hasn’t crossed the 400-run mark since the 2019 edition, with his run tally in the subsequent editions reading — 332, 381, 268 and 332. He had attained his best average in a season back in 2016, in which he scored 489 runs at an average of 44.45. Since then, however, it has remained confined to the 20s until the disastrous 2022 season, in which it plummeted to 19.14 — an all-time low for the ‘Hitman’. Such a poor run with the bat, along with a bottom-place finish for the first time in the franchise’s history, would have set off the alarm bells in Antilia. Rohit’s batting form wouldn’t improve by much the following season even if his team bounced back and went as far as Qualifier 2, collecting 332 runs at 20.75 across the 16th season. Rohit the batter’s recent performances in the IPL have been marked with uncharacteristically scratchy knocks for the better part of the season interspersed with the occasional moment of brilliance. The MI skipper hasn’t been able to time the ball and shift gears the way he used to, for fun one might add, at one stage of his career. And that issue isn’t limited to the IPL alone — it is a key reason why neither he nor Kohli has represented India in the shortest format since the 2022 T20 World Cup but has continued playing and excelling, in ODIs besides Tests. Pandya a proven leader MI releasing Pandya ahead of the 2022 mega-auction not only allowed Gujarat Titans to get their IPL journey off to a grand start, but it might just have proven a blessing-in-disguise for Mumbai Indians in the longer run. The all-rounder, after all, had grown by leaps and bounds over the years since his debut in 2015 but did not get too many opportunities to showcase his skills as a leader. That duty fell on West Indies’ Kieron Pollard more often than not in Rohit’s absence. It was only after Pandya bid goodbye to the franchise and signed with GT that he finally was able to showcase his leadership ability to the world. His run with GT helped land him the India T20 captaincy job later that year after Rohit and Kohli were rested in the format. Pandya has had a largely positive run since then and is expected to lead India in next year’s T20 World Cup should Rohit turn down the BCCI’s offer to lead the Men in Blue one last time in that tournament. [caption id=“attachment_10735851” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Gujarat Titans captain Hardik Pandya with IPL 2022 trophy. Sportzpics[/caption] There are, of course, other factors that help Pandya’s case as a leader. His numbers with bat and ball hardly appeared to dip during his stint as GT captain in the last two seasons. Pandya scored 487 runs at an average of 44.27 and collected eight wickets during GT’s march to the title in 2022. Compare that with Rohit’s falling stocks as a batter, and you can see why MI were influenced towards their landmark decision. Additionally, appointing an all-rounder as captain does come with its sets of advantages, the biggest of which is giving the team greater flexibility in both the batting and bowling departments. Mumbai Indians may have had their reasons for Friday’s announcement. However, how the fans choose to react to the development isn’t something that is in their control, and one look at some of the top hashtags on microblogging website X tells you that a large section of the ‘Paltan’ isn’t happy with what they perceive as unjust treatment meted out towards their ‘Captain Marvellous’. Some are even going as far as calling it a “horrible decision” and saying that while Pandya is a good leader, he isn’t quite in the same league as Rohit . There are also reports of MI losing followers on both X and Instagram, which might have something to do with the dismay expressed by a section of their fans. On that front, Pandya not only has a pair of massive shoes to fill when he formally assumes charge in March but he will also be tasked with regaining some of the goodwill that is perceived to have been lost in the past 24 hours. And that will be an assignment that will be just as challenging as staving off competition from ‘El Clasico’ rivals CSK and other teams for the title.