IPL 2024: Rohit Sharma (L) and Hardik Pandya© AFP
It has been a horrible IPL 2024 season for Mumbai Indians as the five-time champions became the first team to crash out of the playoffs race. With just 4 wins out of 13 matches, they are currently ninth in the points table and their performances have been criticised by both fans and experts. The cricketer who has faced the most criticism is all-rounder Hardik Pandya who was appointed MI captain at the start of the new season. Hardik, who completed a sensational trade from Gujarat Titans, ended Rohit Sharma‘s ten-year tenure as MI skipper – a decision that was not accepted by a section of the fanbase.
Things got worse as MI failed to perform well and chatter increased over a possible rift between Hardik and Rohit. Hardik was booed by a section of the crowd at the Wankhede Stadium during home matches and several ex-cricketers pointed out that Rohit did not publicly said anything about it.
A report in Dainik Jagran has claimed that there exists two camps in the Mumbai Indians dressing room at present with one supporting Hardik and the other supporting Rohit. The report further said that while Rohit enjoys the support of domestic players, the overseas stars mainly are in Hardik’s corner.
According to the report, the ‘factions’ have become quite common in Mumbai Indians during the IPL 2024 season and that was one of the reason behind their horrible performance.
Earlier, there were reports that senior players of the team were not happy with Hardik’s captaincy and the likes of Rohit, Suryakumar Yadav and jasprit bumrah held a meeting to discuss the issue.
Meanwhile, South Africa great AB De Villiers decoded MI’s IPL 2024 show till now.
“MI have been very disappointing. I backed them from the start to qualify for the knockout stages, but that will not happen. What has gone wrong? Last four seasons – 5th in 2021, 10th in 2022, 4th in 2023 and 9th. Last game was good but it was too little too late. So Rohit Sharma says, ‘I have played under a lot of captains. It’s nothing new. You do what you are required to do and I have been doing that for the last one month.’ You can read a little bit into that if you want to,” he said on his YouTube channel.
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