Mumbai Indian head coach Mark Boucher expressed uncertainty regarding his as well as the franchise legend Rohit Sharma's future with the five-time champions after they finished with a wooden spoon in the 2024 edition of the IPL. After a playoff finish in the last season, the Mumbai Indians had a campaign to forget in 2024 which Boucher attributed to them having a complete game with both batting and bowling firing together as well as the ripple effect of the off-field issues to on the field.
Mumbai Indians ended their campaign with just four wins and the captaincy switch just before the season, had a part to play. Boucher admitted that boos did affect Pandya on the field and his game as he had probably the worst season with both bat and ball in recent years while even though Rohit had his best season with the bat in the last few seasons, it seems the franchise may have moved on from him.
When asked if it was indeed Rohit's last season with the Mumbai Indians, Boucher didn't respond to it explicitly but neither did he have a positive response if the former skipper was staying or not. "To be honest, there hasn't been many conversations about Rohit's future," Boucher said. "I spoke to him last night or the night before, just to do basically a little review of the season. And I said, 'What's next for Rohit Sharma?' and he said to me 'World Cup'. And that's perfect. That's all I need to know about what Rohit Sharma's future is.
"For me, he is the master of his own destiny. It's a big auction next season, who knows what's going to happen? We'll just have to take each day as it comes," former South Africa wicket-keeper and coach added.
Boucher did hint that Hardik could be a long-term captain for Mumbai Indians but still there is time for all those discussions and immediately after the final league game against Lucknow Super Giants wasn't the right one. On Rohit's batting, Boucher said that it was an average season for the former skipper as he himself would go on to agree in an interaction with JioCinema that he didn't have the season he wanted to, except a few games.
"I think it was a season of two halves for him. Started off the season really well, he was hitting the ball sweet in the nets, got a great hundred here [Wankhede Stadium] against CSK as well. So we honestly thought, he was on a great path for us to go out there and get some good runs," Boucher said in the post-match press conference.
"Unfortunately, it's just the nature of T20 as well, he went out there, trying to be aggressive, which is a new sort of way of playing as an opening batter and he got a couple of low scores and unfortunately, it didn't help us in that situation as well. But tonight, he finished with a fantastic knock as well. So, yeah competition of two halves for him. If you ask Ro, he'd probably say it was an average season for him, especially after the start he got," her added.
Rohit scored 417 runs in the season at an average of 32 and a strike rate of 150 including a century and a fifty, both at the Wankhede Stadium.
