IPL 2024 Auction: "You’ve To Admire Courage..." - Eoin Morgan On Rohit Sharma's Removal As MI Captain

England National Cricket Team World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan has showered praise on the Mumbai Indians (MI) franchise for taking a tough and courageous decision to replace Rohit Sharma as skipper with the star all-rounder Hardik Pandya ahead of the 2024 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Hardik Pandya has been handed the captaincy responsibility of one of the most successful franchises in the history of T20 cricket leagues – Mumbai Indians (MI) – and he will have a massive responsibility on his shoulders to carry on the legacy of the side.

Mumbai Indians (MI) became the first Indian Premier League (IPL) team to win 5 championships and all of them came under the leadership of Rohit Sharma. The record of Rohit Sharma for the most IPL title wins as captain was equaled by MS Dhoni in 2023 when he led the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) to their 5th title by beating Gujarat Titans (GT), who were led by Hardik Pandya.

The star all-rounder Pandya is looked at as the next captain of the India National Cricket Team in white-ball cricket, but whether he gets the role or not will heavily depend on his fitness as he is a highly injury-prone cricketer.

Hardik Pandya’s emergence as the skipper came in the Indian Premier League (IPL) when he steered Gujarat Titans (GT) to the IPL title in 2022, which was his first season as skipper and GT’s first season in the competition. In this year’s competition too his team did well and reached the final.

Despite all this success, Hardik Pandya decided to move back to Mumbai Indians (MI) with whom he started his IPL journey and he was transferred in an all-cash trade.

Pandya’s appointment as the skipper of Mumbai Indians (MI) didn’t go well with the fans, but the former England National Cricket Team captain Eoin Morgan thinks differently. He believes any franchise would like to have a player of Pandya’s caliber and hailed Mumbai Indians (MI) for being forward-thinking and logic-driven.

“Having the opportunity to bring back Pandya in the side is one that any team would jump at. But also, if you look at the franchise itself, they have had a very forward-thinking, logic-driven and future-proof driven style of strategy for a long time,” Morgan, an IPL Expert at JioCinema, told TOI in an interaction on Monday.

A decision like this reinforces that the franchise always comes first – Eoin Morgan on Hardik Pandya replacing Rohit Sharma as skipper

Morgan further said that one needs to admire the courage shown by Mumbai Indians (MI) while taking the decision on Rohit Sharma.

“A decision like this reinforces that the franchise always comes first. They don’t see any short-term planning in anything that they do. They always try and invest as much as they can in players. You probably see this as being a tough decision that they’ve made hoping that the long-term benefits will see MI lifting another championships in the coming years,” he added.

“So, in a way, you’ve to admire the courage that it takes to make a decision like that because not every team would take that decision,” he added.

Eoin Morgan also shared his views on the Impact Player rule which was introduced in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023. He said that the introduction of the rule has enhanced the performance of the teams.

“I like the impact player rule. I think it allows you to produce performances from a side that possibly wouldn’t be able to do,” Morgan said.

“So, I mean, I’ve sat in many selection meetings over the years and having all round is an absolute privilege. But when you don’t have them available, it really does hamper selection because you’re always struggling to balance the side either with an extra batter or an extra bow. Resulted in having a rule in place, creates an even field across the whole tournament and allows teams to be more tactically savvy when it comes to playing against tougher opposition who might be stacked full of all-rounders,” he said.

Coming back to Rohit Sharma, he was appointed as the skipper of Mumbai Indians (MI) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2013 and led the team to 5 IPL titles – in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020. Overall, he led the franchise 163 times in the IPL and the Champions League T20, winning 91 games and losing 68.