Rohit Sharma’s glorious reign as captain of the Mumbai Indians officially came to an end on Friday with the side announcing all-rounder Hardik Pandya as their new skipper for the 2024 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The announcement ended speculation about who will lead the franchise ever Pandya’s shock trade to MI was confirmed in the days after the deadline got over for teams to announce their retentions and released players. Pandya, who made his IPL debut in 2015, played seven seasons under Rohit’s captaincy in MI before moving to the Gujarat Titans in 2022. The talismanic all-rounder had two fruitful seasons at GT, leading them to victory in IPL 2022 and taking them to the finals earlier this year.
Rohit took over as MI captain in 2013 and the five IPL titles that the side has won have all been under him. In this period, MI developed a rather intense and high-profile rivalry with MS Dhoni‘s Chennai Super Kings (CSK). The two sides often finished in the upper echelons of the league table and three of the five titles that Rohit and MI won came after they beat CSK in the final.
MI vs CSK title deciders
On Thursday, CSK put out a tweet acknowledging Rohit’s achievements after MI made the bombshell announcement. “A decade of spirited challenge! Much respect, Rohit!” said CSK in the tweet along with a photo of Dhoni shaking hands with Rohit.
MI won their first IPL title in 2013, in which Rohit took over as captain for the first time from Ricky Ponting four games into the season. They had beaten CSK in that season’s final by 23 runs. Their second title also came by beating CSK in the final in 2015.
Interestingly, MI then faced Rising Pune Supergiant the final of the 2017 IPL en route to their third title, the team that Dhoni was playing for while CSK were serving a ban from the league. Their fourth IPL title also came after a thrilling victory over CSK in 2019 and then they beat DC in 2020, thus joining Chennai as the only side to have successfully defended their IPL title.
Rohit is the fourth-highest run scorer in IPL history with 6211, out of 3986 runs have come as captain – across 157 innings at 129.37 SR with 25 fifties. Rohit’s tally is the the third-highest among IPL captains after Kohli’s 4994 runs and Dhoni’s 4660. His successor, Hardik, began his IPL career with the Mumbai Indians in 2015 and has scored 1476 runs for the franchise and taken 42 wickets. Signed as an uncapped player for INR 10 lakh, Pandya became an integral part of the team and was part of MI’s title-winning sides in 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2020.
