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Mumbai Indians have done exceptionally well under the captaincy of Rohit Sharma. Since making his debut as the team captain in 2013, it has just been announced that Hardik Pandya will be replacing the 36-year-old for the upcoming IPL 2024 season. Rohit Sharma still has a commanding presence in many of the betting markets provided by the top Indian cricket betting sites. It is unsurprising considering that he has led Mumbai Indians to a whopping five Indian Premier League titles so far. Yet, dropping out of the MI top spot is likely to hand India a decisive boost in the upcoming international series.
The captaincy wheel for the Indian national team is in a transitional phase. Rohit will soon be turning 37 and he will be touching 40 by the time the next World Cup kicks off in South Africa. The World Cup 2027, therefore, might be a long shot for Rohit to try and lift the ultimate accolade in the world of cricket. Many are already of the opinion that Rohit might not be able to lift the World Cup as a captain and that time has passed for the strong batter.
Even with all these suggestions, India are likely to stick with Rohit and his outstanding captaincy skills for the next couple of years. After Rahul Dravid stepped down as the captain in 2007, there was a great replacement in the form of MS Dhoni. Similarly, there was already a succession plan put in place for the departure of Dhoni and it led to the rise of Virat Kohli. Rohit Sharma’s rise in the Indian national team also stuck with the same policy.
India are currently involved in test matches against England on home soil. This will be followed by a tour of Zimbabwe in July.
It is clear that captaining the Indian team and Mumbai Indians is taking a toll on the 36-year-old. In the last few years, Rohit has struggled for impact with the bat. After only managing 268 runs in the 2022 IPL campaign from 14 matches, he was able to improve slightly to come up with 332 runs during the 2023 campaign from 16 matches. MI coach Mark Boucher has admitted recently that the burden of captaincy has led to underwhelming personal performances from Rohit. The decision to relieve him of MI captaincy is likely to be a huge positive going forward.
Mumbai Indians did receive a lot of criticism for the way Rohit’s captaincy was brought to an end. The franchise ended up losing several hundred thousand followers on social media accounts in the aftermath of the same. However, the franchise remains the big favourite for winning the IPL 2024 title alongside Chennai Super Kings.
Even though Rohit has been immensely successful as the Mumbai Indians captain, he has not led the team to an IPL title since 2020. It has been three seasons of underwhelming performances from the team.
In the international scene, Rohit Sharma went through two difficult years in 2021 and 2022. He was able to feature in less than 10 ODI matches. However, he bounced back in style in 2023 after managing to hit 1255 runs at an average of 52.29. This also includes two centuries – his first since 2020. The main disappointment for the cricketer from Nagpur will be a return of just 656 runs from 29 T20I matches in 2022. So far in 2024, he has been able to make a sizable improvement already after hitting a century – his first in T20I games since 2018.
There has been a reversal in fortunes for Rohit Sharma for the better. This only bodes well for the national team and its fortunes going forward.