Selfless Rohit has to come good with the bat for MI in IPL 2024: Harbhajan

Hardik was signed by the franchise from the Gujarat Titans, making his return to MI after two years. Weeks after his return, MI announced Hardik’s appointment as skipper, replacing long-time captain Rohit Sharma, who led the franchise to five IPL titles.

After becoming the first team to win the IPL five times in 2020, Mumbai Indians failed to qualify for the playoffs in 2021 and 2022. They advanced to the league stage last year but were unable to qualify for the final. Rohit Sharma’s recent batting record has not been particularly impressive. In the last two IPL seasons, the India star scored 600 runs with an average of 20.00 and a strike rate of 126.84.

Harbhajan Singh told Star Sports.

“Rohit Sharma is selfless, puts the team ahead of his personal ambitions. Team India needs Rohit Sharma, the captain and the batter, to lead the team from the front. Rohit Sharma, the batter, needs to come good for Mumbai Indians, he needs to score those runs for them. Rohit is not a player who will play attacking shots in the first six overs, he has the ability to hit six at any moment of the match,” Harbhajan Singh told Star Sports.

However, without captaincy, Rohit is expected to focus fully on his batting and let his bat do the talking. Rohit will certainly be involved in the leadership group as he will be leading India in the T20 World Cup in June in the West Indies and the USA. The India captain will be high on confidence after having scored 400 runs, including 2 hundreds, in the recently-concluded Test series against England.

Rohit recently led India to a brilliant 4-1 Test series victory over England, and he is expected to play in the IPL later this month. IPL 2024 is scheduled to begin on March 22. Despite not being the skipper for MI this year,