Mumbai Indians' decision to appoint Hardik Pandya as its new skipper for IPL 2024 might be a futuristic move but Rohit Sharma being removed as skipper didn't go down well with its hardcore fans.
Interestingly, the IPL franchise lost over 400K followers on social media platform 'X' within an hour after making the announcement on Friday.
A disappointed fan even went on to set his Mumbai Indians jersey on fire.
Hardik left MI ahead of IPL 2022 and was picked by the Gujarat Titans ahead of the mega auction. GT won the IPL title in its very first season under Hardik and also went on to play the final in 2023.
However, MI traded back Hardik in an all-cash deal ahead of IPL 2024 auction and have now put their trust in him to lead the team going forward.
Rohit on the other hand opted to not play white-ball cricket for a while after India lost the Cricket World Cup final in November.
Under him, MI won 5 IPL titles and become one of the most destructive teams in the competition.