Rohit was sitting on the sidelines with Suryakumar and Tilak but as Hardik walked out to bat at the nets, the trio got up and went towards the other side.
All is not well between Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya. What’s worse? The gap is reportedly wider than ever before. In the lead-up to the T20 World Cup, a stained relationship between the captain and vice-captain could turn out to be the Achilles heel of the Indian side in their bid to end an 11-year wait for an ICC trophy.
Mumbai Indians batters Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav(Deepak Gupta/Hindustan Times)
The differences germinated when Mumbai Indians, in a surprising move, roped in Hardik from Gujarat Titans and announced him as their captain, replacing Rohit, a five-time IPL winner and regarded as one of the best leaders of the tournament. This became the first instance of a current Indian captain playing under someone else in the IPL.
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Fans left no stones unturned to let the world know of their disapproval. Hardik was booed wherever MI played in the first half of the 17th edition. This was a homecoming not on the cards for the ace Indian all-rounder. His own performance and MI’s horror run made matters more complicated.
After three back-to-back not-so-satisfactory seasons under Rohit, the five-time champion’s plans of a revival crash-landed as they became the first team to get knocked out of the tournament.
Amid all this, MI travelled to Kolkata for their match against the Kolkata Knight Riders, a team that was on a roll. More than the David vs Goliath contest, the KKR vs MI pre-match talks were headlined by Rohit’s chat with Abhishek Nayar, KKR’s assistant coach. Although the audio of the viral short clip wasn’t clear, one could hear Rohit mentioning something about building a home and culture that was not being followed lately.
Fans didn’t take much time to relate “home” to MI. During the same practice session, another incident happened that highlighted the rift between Rohit and Hardik, pointing towards the existence of two different camps within the MI setup.
According to a Dainik Jagran report, Hardik and Rohit have rarely practised together during this IPL. On the eve of the match against KKR, which MI lost, Rohit hit the nets first. There was no sign of Hardik when the Indian captain was going about his business. The report further adds that Rohit was sitting on the sidelines with Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma after finishing his batting drill but the moment Hardik walked out to have a session at the nets, the trio got up and went towards the other side of the ground.
Rohit and Hardik’s below-par show in IPL 2024
Both Rohit and Hardik have been below par in this IPL. And that has reflected on MI’s performance. One of the most successful and most followed teams in the history of IPL is staring down a bottom-place finish. With only one match to go, MI have crawled their way to eight points and found themselves at No.9. Their captain, Hardik, has had one of his worst seasons, scoring only 200 runs at an average of 18. With the ball, he has picked up 11 wickets alright but his economy rate of 10.59 has hurt MI.
Rohit, on the other hand, has fared no better. The opener started off the season with a bang but his performance nosedived as the tournament progressed. Rohit has scored 349 runs at a strike rate of 145 this year.
