Picture Credit: X
The Mumbai Indians captaincy shift has not rested well among several members of the cricketing arena. While several Indian cricketers, including the likes of Suryakumar Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah and others shared cryptic posts surrounding the captaincy shift from Rohit Sharma to Hardik Pandya, recently former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar has shared his take on the same.
The former Indian great’s comments come after recently Ritika Sajdeh , Rohit Sharma’s wife dropped a shocking comment on Mark Boucher’s viral podcast where he explained the reason of this move to be solely based on cricket. However, Sunil Gavaskar has come in support of this shift in order to release some burden off Rohit Sharma’s shoulder, as he continues to lead the national team in all three formats.
“Look, they have always thought about the future of the franchise. Rohit Sharma is already 36 years old and also faces immense pressure, being the captain of India for all three formats. They have tried to reduce some of that burden and give the responsibility on the young shoulder of Hardik Pandya,” Sunil Gavaskar said on Star Sports.
The 74-year-old also feels that this captaincy change will benefit the Mumbai Indians, seeing that Hardik has led Gujarat Titans to back-to-back finals. “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 come at No. 3 or No. 5 and help them post totals of 200-plus consistently,” the former Indian cricketer further added.
Earlier, MI coach Mark Boucher had termed this change to be based on “cricketing decision”. In a podcast with Smash Sports, Mark Boucher said, “I think it was purely a cricketing decision. We saw the window period to get Hardik back as a player. For me it’s a transition phase. A lot of people don’t understand in India, people get quite emotional. But you know you take the emotions away from it. I think it’s just more of a cricketing decision that was made and I do think it is going to bring the best out of Rohit as a person, as a player.”
