The year of 2024 hasn’t exactly been business as usual for the IPL. The world’s richest cricket tournament has already seen a lot of controversies and shocking developments.
However, at the forefront of all these developments has been the captaincy change controversy surrounding Rohit Sharma and Mumbai Indians. In this short post we will cover how it started and where it’s going right now.
The Beginnging Point of the Controversy
The retention phase for IPL 2024 brought about a big controversy for Mumbai Indians. It all started with MI bringing in Hardik Pandya and declaring him as the captain with immediate effect.
Not just Rohit Sharma, but none of the MI fans were expecting this development in their wildest dreams, especially considering that Sharma has led MI to 5 IPL trophies.
But MI said it wanted to look at the future. And be prepared in advance.
The Hardik Pandya Condition
Then there are also rumours around Hardik Pandya and his condition for returning back to MI. As per a report in Hindustan Times, Pandya had put a condition to Mumbai Indians that he will only return back to them only if they make him the captain. In fact, Pandya was asked the same question in MI’s recent press conference. But the MI management refused to let Pandya answer it.
And MI accepted his condition and brought him back to the team. Of course, it probably also came as a shock and a setback for Gujarat Titans, for whom Hardik played for 2 years while captaining the side.
MI Fans, Rohit’s Wife Disappointed!
But that’s not where things ended. Removing Rohit Sharma as the captain turned out to be a far more difficult decision for MI than they might have thought. This decision led to widespread disappointment among its fans, leading to a massive unfollow campaign against the franchise.
In a matter of a few days following the captaincy change announcement, MI lost lakhs of followers across all of its social media channels. Ritika Sharma, Rohit’s wife, also came to the limelight during this phase.
Her Instagram activity – including her comments on other users’ posts subtly criticizing MI for this sudden and shocking decision – suggested that she is hurt and extremely disappointed. In fact, Ritika apparently still hasn’t stopped engaging with posts that directly or indirectly hint at the whole controversy surrounding the captaincy change.
It’s clear that we may see Rohit Sharma leave Mumbai Indians in 2025. It might not be just from Sharma, though, as MI too may not have much of a choice!