Image Credit- BCCI
When the Mumbai Indians welcomed Gujarat Titans
captain Hardik Pandya back to the team two years after he was cut, they pulled
off one of the more shocking IPL transactions in the competition’s short
history. Then, they made headlines once more when they removed Rohit Sharma—the
guy who captained them to five IPL championships—from the captaincy.
While MI received a lot of backlash from its
supporters on social media for the leadership change, head coach Mark Boucher
said, in his first public comments, that it was a “cricketing
decision.”
“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. Just let him go out and enjoy and score
some good runs,” Mark Boucher said on Smash Sports podcast.
Boucher emphasised that the MI thought tank wants to
relieve Rohit of the pressure and publicity that comes with being captain,
given he has had a few below-average seasons at bat. When his side was at the
bottom of the standings in 2022, Rohit scored 268 goals at a strike rate of
120.18. He performed better in 2023 (332 runs at 132.80), but his team was
defeated in the second qualifying round.
“One thing I did pick up with Ro (Rohit) is that
he is a fantastic guy. I mean he’s been captaining for ages and he’s done
really well for Mumbai Indians. Now he also leads India as well. It is that he
walks into a place and there’s just cameras in it and he’s so busy and he
hasn’t had probably the best couple of seasons of late with the bat but he’s
done well as a captain.
“And I just thought you know when we’re speaking
with the whole Mumbai Indians group, we thought that maybe this is the
opportunity for him to step as a player. We believe he got some great value to
add and just go out there and actually enjoy it without the hype of being a
captain,” Boucher said.
He is still going to captain India so that hype’s
going be there but when he steps into the IPL maybe just taking that extra bit
of pressure off him as a captain an maybe we get the best out of Rohit Sharma.
We want to see him playing with a smile on his face, spending a bit of time
with his beautiful family.”