IPL 2024: Ex-cricketer Tells Why Mumbai Indians Replaced Rohit Sharma With Hardik Pandya As Captain

IPl 2024: The cold war between Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya over Mumbai Indians' captaincy has been the talk of the town. Both star players have been serving the national side for years with their best skills and have a massive fan following, but their differences have been affecting the team's performance in the ongoing Indian Premier League.

However, the Mumbai Indians team management, new captain Hardik Pandya or Rohit Sharma, nobody opened up on the reason or need for the change of throne.

Lately, former India wicketkeeper-batsman Robin Uthappa shared his views on MI's change in captaincy. He said the decision to pick Hardik Pandya was management's collective decision. Diving into the past, Robin Uthappa said in 2013 Ricky Ponting was replaced by Rohit Sharma mid-season at that time all the senior players had backed MI's decision.

"Hardik Pandya is their discovery. They did it through their scouting methods. So they are essentially looking at a pure Mumbai Indians boy. When captaincy was given to Rohit Sharma it was taken from Ricky Ponting in the middle of the season. This is the same franchise. All the senior guys Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh, and Ricky Ponting supported Rohit," Uthappa said.

Explaining the reason behind the change of throne, Uthappa added that in the last three years, a dip came in Rohit Sharma's performance which forced MI management to take the tough call. He said stats will show that Rohit's batting as well as his captaincy's magic did not create a big impact. However, he lauded the World Cup stint.

"Nobody has questioned Rohit Sharma's caliber, but look at it from a franchise perspective. MI won in 2020, but the team's performance dipped in the last three years. As a batter also Rohit could not create a big impact.

"So there's a lack of success as a batter, a lack of success as a captain. In just the IPL, cause everywhere else, he has scored runs," he said.