Rohit Sharma’s wife’s blunt post on MI coach’s take on Hardik Pandya, captaincy
Rohit Sharma’s wife, Ritika Sajdeh, did not hold back and expressed her disappointment over.
Mumbai Indians head coach Mark Boucher’s justification of the 5-time champions replacing her husband with Hardik Pandya as their captain for IPL 2024. Even as Rohit Sharma has remained tight-lipped about the decision that has divided the cricket fraternity, Ritika Sajdeh took to social media to slam the comments from the former South Africa wicketkeeper.
Mark Boucher, in a podcast show, said earlier in the week that picking Hardik as captain was a ‘cricketing decision’ and people should not get ‘emotional’ about it. Boucher said that naming Hardik as the new MI skipper was a part of the transition phase for the Mumbai Indians.
More importantly, Mark Boucher had said Rohit Sharma was not at his best with the bat for Mumbai Indians in the last few seasons, and the decision to remove him from captaincy will only help him contribute better as a batter.
The official Instagram handle of Smash Sports uploaded the video of Boucher’s interview. Replying to the video, Ritika wrote, “So many things wrong with this…”
Rohit Sharma has struggled to be consistent for Mumbai Indians in the last few IPL seasons. He managed 332 runs in 16 matches in 2023, while he aggregated just 268 in 14 matches at an average of less than 20 in 2022.
“I think it was purely a cricketing decision. We saw the window period to get Hardik back as a player. For me it’s a transition phase. A lot of people don’t understand in India, people get quite emotional, but you know you take the emotions away from it.
“I think it’s just more of a cricketing decision that was made, and I do think it is going to bring the best out of Rohit as a person as a player. Just let him go out and enjoy and score some good runs,” Boucher said earlier on Smash Sports podcast.
Back in 2013, Rohit took over from Ricky Ponting as the skipper of the Mumbai-based franchise. From there on, MI won 5 titles in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020. Rohit also flourished as a batter and is amongst the leading run-scorers in the history of the IPL.
Hardik, on the other hand, made his debut for MI back in 2015 and played 6 seasons in a row for them until 2021. In 2022, he moved to the Gujarat Titans and led them to glory in their maiden season. Under Hardik, the Titans also finished as the runners-up last season.
Before the 2024 edition of the IPL, MI roped in Hardik in an all-cash deal with the Titans. Boucher showed faith in Pandya, saying that he has the potential to lead MI to greater heights.
“He is a Mumbai Indians boy. He went to other franchise, won the title in first year, ended up runner-up in his second year. So there’s obviously some very good leadership skills as well,” Boucher added.