Former Indian opener Sunil Gavaskar believes Mumbai Indians (MI) had the team’s future in mind when they appointed Hardik Pandya as their new captain, replacing Rohit Sharma.

MI received a lot of backlash from fans after they removed Rohit, who had led them to five IPL titles, from the captaincy post. However, Gavaskar feels looking at Rohit’s age and Hardik’s capability, it was a smart decision from the franchise.

Here’s what Sunil Gavaskar told Star Sports about Mumbai Indians passing the baton from Rohit Sharma to Hardik Pandya:

“Look they have always thought about the future of the franchise. Rohit Sharma is already 36 years old and also faces immense pressure being the captain of India for all three formats. They have tried to reduce some of that burden and give that responsibility on the young shoulders of Hardik Pandya.”

Hardik tasted tremendous success with the Gujarat Titans (GT), leading them to back-to-back finals in their two seasons and also winning the IPL in 2022.

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Rohit Sharma can express himself freely at the top: Sunil Gavaskar

Sunil Gavaskar also believes that with no pressure of captaincy, Rohit Sharma can be dangerous at the top of the order for MI. If the veteran opener can get Mumbai off to quickfire starts, Gavaskar feels they have the batting line-up to post mammoth totals.

On this, he stated:

“Handing Hardik the captaincy is only going to benefit the Mumbai Indians. They have now given the freedom to Rohit to go and express himself freely at the top of the order. Hardik can then come at No.3 or No.5 and help them post totals of 200-plus consistently.”

MI head coach Mark Boucher recently opened up on a podcast about why MI went about the captaincy change. However, Rohit’s wife Ritika Sajdeh left a cryptic comment on the Instagram video that suggested that all may not be cordial between the Mumbai Indians and their former captain.