Rohit Sharma’s wife, Ritika, set the internet ablaze with her response to Mumbai Indians coach Mark Boucher’s explanation of appointing Hardik Pandya as the franchise’s captain. The decision to replace Rohit Sharma with Hardik Pandya as the skipper of the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Mumbai Indians sent shockwaves across social media platforms, resulting in a substantial loss of followers for the team. After Coach Boucher elucidated the rationale behind the leadership transition in a podcast, Ritika Sharma took to social media, igniting a fresh wave of controversy.
Boucher characterized the captaincy change as a purely ‘cricketing’ decision, aimed at alleviating some of the burdens on Rohit while affording Hardik the opportunity to further develop his leadership skills, considering his successful tenure with the Gujarat Titans, where he led the team to two consecutive IPL finals.
“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,” explained Mark Boucher on the Smash Sports podcast.
Ritika’s response in the podcast’s comment section, “So many things wrong with this…,” stirred further controversy, indicating dissent or disagreement with Boucher’s justification.
Boucher further elaborated in the podcast, expressing his desire for Rohit to focus primarily on his batting by relieving him of the captaincy responsibilities, thus enabling him to perform freely.
“One thing I did pick up with Ro (Rohit) is that he is a fantastic guy. I mean, he’s been captaining for ages and he’s done really well for Mumbai Indians. Now he also leads India as well. It is that he walks into a place and there’s just cameras in it and he’s so busy and he hasn’t had probably the best couple of seasons of late with the bat but he’s done well as a captain.”
