Credit: X
On Friday, December 15, Mumbai Indians announced that Hardik Pandya has taken over the captaincy duties from Rohit Sharma, the five-time IPL winner for the franchise during his illustrious reign. Shortly afterwards, they posted an emotional video for Rohit Sharma on social media with a thank you message for all his accomplishments in the leadership role.
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After joining Mumbai Indians in 2011, Rohit Sharma emerged as one of the most impressive young players for the franchise, ascending to captaincy in just two years after Ricky Ponting gave up the leadership role during the IPL 2013 season. Since then, the 36-year-old transformed himself as a player and Mumbai Indians as a franchise, securing them five IPL trophies in his 10-year reign as captain.
Rohit Sharma has given way to the new leader of Mumbai Indians, Hardik Pandya, who had been a pivotal part of the majority of his captaincy tenure, winning four IPL trophies together in 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2020. Following this, the official Instagram account of Mumbai Indians sent out a video to acknowledge the contributions while sharing one of his best anecdotes from the last ten years, in which he asked the players to smile irrespective of the match result.
Watch the tribute video from Mumbai Indians for Rohit Sharma's captaincy reign here:
The post from Mumbai Indians read, “Dear Rohit, On April 24, 2013, you took over as captain of MI. You asked us to Believe when our backs were against the wall. In victories & defeats, you asked us to Smile. 10 years & 6 trophies later, here we are. Our forever captain , your legacy will be etched in Blue and Gold. Thank you, Captain RO!”
