Former Indian cricket team batsman Navjot Singh Sidhu had his say on Rohit Sharma playing under Hardik Pandya’s captaincy in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 after the much-talked about change in captaincy. Hardik, who completed a sensational trade move from Gujarat Titans to Mumbai Indians, replaced Rohit as skipper ahead of IPL 2024 and the move has sparked massive talk among fans and pundits. In a recent interaction, Sidhu said that Dhoni and Rohit are great players in their own right and playing in a franchise team under a different captain does not detract from their position.
“I have played in an Indian team where five captains were paid together. Kapil Dev, Dilip Vengsarkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Krishnamachari Srikkanth and Ravi Shastri. Pick up a stone and you will find a captain both above and below. There were no problems because they were for played for their country. The motivation was to play for your country. So playing under Hardik does not make Rohit smaller.”
Dhoni has already passed on the baton and the same could have happened to Mumbai Indians. But this is a franchise and they look at the performances. They gave it three years and when it didn’t work, they got a new person for the job. You have to accept it. But Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni are great players. A dwarf is a dwarf even if he stands on the top of a mountain, and a God is a God even if he stands at the bottom of a well,” Sidhu said during the analysis on Star Sports.
Navjot Singh Sidhu on Rohit Sharma. pic.twitter.com/OtQNhwitBh
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) March 24, 2024
Meanwhile, Mumbai Indians batting coach Kieron Pollard backed Hardik Pandya’s move to open the bowling in place of Jasprit Bumrah and also said that the skipper batting at number seven in their IPL opener against Gujarat Titans was a “collective decision”.
An inexplicable batting strategy saw MI lose their opener by six runs here on Sunday after they looked on course for victory.
Mumbai Indians won the toss and chose to bowl first and surprisingly Hardik opened the bowling against his former side.
“You have to plan and decide what you want to do as a team. Hardik (Pandya) has also bowled with the new ball for Gujarat in the last few years. He swung the new ball and bowled it well, which was nothing new to us.
“We tried to take advantage of the swing of the new ball. When I look at the decision that was made, there’s nothing wrong with that and we’ll move on,” Pollard said at the post-match press conference.
(With PTI inputs)
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