Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya interacting with Rohit Sharma during IPL Cricket match between Mumbai Indians and Gujarat Titans at Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday (Express photo by Nirmal Harindran)
The frying pan of the ongoing Indian Premier League season has been the captaincy shift at Mumbai Indians from Rohit Sharma to Hardik Pandya. Former MI and India batter Robin Uthappa believes the entire wave of criticism that Pandya and the franchise’s management have received could have been avoided had the five-time IPL winning captain got a fitting farewell.
Speaking on The Ranveer Show, Uthappa dissected the matter from different perspectives. First, that of the former MI skipper. “Rohit’s perception is that he won five titles for Mumbai Indians. Brought the team out of oblivion after first four-five years, and then discovered incredible cricketers with the help of the management and continues to do so, and became arguably one of the best captains of the league. One thing that was remiss in this whole situation….let’s say if Rohit wasn’t agreeing with this whole situation but if they had given him a nice send off…the dignity of a nice send off for someone who has achieved so much for your franchise was remiss,” Uthappa said.
Breaking into the franchise’s point of view, Uthappa said, “Captaincy was taken from Ricky Ponting and given to Rohit Sharma in the middle of the tournament. Same franchise, and all the guys who were there supported Rohit Sharma. Harbhajan Singh, Ricky Ponting, Sachin Tendulkar, they all backed it.”
Uthappa argued that the decision to bring back Hardik Pandya could’ve snowballed after the franchise’s performance since last winning the title in 2020. “In the last four years, statistically – I’m never going to question the calibre of Rohit Sharma the batter – he’s scored less than 300 runs in the last three years and the team hasn’t won since 2020. Lack of success as a captain and as a batter, there’s a reason they landed on this consensus that maybe you have to look beyond Rohit. Maybe it happened last year only and they had discussions about it. And then, Rohit Sharma’s success happens in the World Cup. I think his gloriousness and greatness as a captain and a player came through,” he added.
The Indian Express had reported last year following Pandya’s trade from Gujarat Titans to Mumbai Indians that Rohit Sharma was informed by the franchise at the start of the ODI World Cup about Hardik Pandya returning to the MI fold for the upcoming season, this time as captain.
Backing Pandya’s decision to move back from Gujarat to his former franchise, Uthappa added, “He said if I’m coming back to Mumbai Indians after doing this with another franchise, ‘I want to come back as a captain’. Is that wrong? I don’t know how long I’ll be playing cricket, I want a good deal. Is that wrong?”
“And he’s very cognizant of the fact that he’s got a brittle body. That’s his situation. His body is not built to sustain the kind of force he puts through his body. He lives life loudly. I think he’s a very highly misunderstood individual, wears his heart on his sleeve. He doesn’t have finesse as a human being. He’s very raw. This guy knows his time span in cricket is only this much,” Uthappa added.
As it stands, MI sit in the bottom half of the points table, having won only three games from the first half of their season.
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