Rohit Sharma’s wonderful reign as captain of the Mumbai Indians formally got here to an finish on Friday with the aspect saying all-rounder Hardik Pandya as their new skipper for the 2024 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The announcement ended hypothesis about who will lead the franchise ever Pandya’s shock trade to MI was confirmed within the days after the deadline acquired over for groups to announce their retentions and launched gamers. Pandya, who made his IPL debut in 2015, performed seven seasons underneath Rohit’s captaincy in MI earlier than shifting to the Gujarat Titans in 2022. The talismanic all-rounder had two fruitful seasons at GT, main them to victory in IPL 2022 and taking them to the finals earlier this yr.

Rohit took over as MI captain in 2013 and the 5 IPL titles that the aspect has received have all been underneath him. In this era, MI developed a fairly intense and high-profile rivalry with MS Dhoni‘s Chennai Super Kings (CSK). The two sides usually completed within the higher echelons of the league desk and three of the 5 titles that Rohit and MI received got here after they beat CSK within the ultimate.

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!” stated CSK within the tweet together with a photograph of Dhoni shaking palms with Rohit.

MI received their first IPL title in 2013, wherein Rohit took over as captain for the primary time from Ricky Ponting 4 video games into the season. They had crushed CSK in that season’s ultimate by 23 runs. Their second title additionally got here by beating CSK within the ultimate in 2015.

Interestingly, MI then confronted Rising Pune Supergiant the ultimate of the 2017 IPL en path to their third title, the workforce that Dhoni was enjoying for whereas CSK had been serving a ban from the league. Their fourth IPL title additionally got here after an exciting victory over CSK in 2019 after which they beat DC in 2020, thus becoming a member of Chennai as the one aspect to have efficiently defended their IPL title.

Rohit is the fourth-highest run scorer in IPL historical past with 6211, out of 3986 runs have come as captain – throughout 157 innings at 129.37 SR with 25 fifties. Rohit’s tally is the the third-highest amongst IPL captains after Kohli’s 4994 runs and Dhoni’s 4660. His successor, Hardik, started his IPL profession with the Mumbai Indians in 2015 and has scored 1476 runs for the franchise and brought 42 wickets. Signed as an uncapped participant for INR 10 lakh, Pandya turned an integral a part of the workforce and was a part of MI’s title-winning sides in 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2020.