Former Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma tried pacifying the Mumbai crowd at the Wankhede Stadium to stop booing the incumbent skipper Hardik Pandya during the clash against Rajasthan Royals on Monday. The fans booed the new skipper on multiple occasions, expressing their anger and disappointment over his appointment at the helm.
Hardik has been facing backlash in the ongoing season of the Indian cash-rich league with the crowd booing him in Ahmedabad and Hyderabad earlier and now in Mumbai, where he is the home captain and returned for the first time after nearly three years. However, in a video going viral on social media, Rohit can be seen trying to cool down the fans when he was at the boundary and not to give those negative reactions to the all-rounder. He gestured to the fans with his hands and tried pacifying them.
Watch the Video here:
The video went viral on social media with several netizens sharing it.
The crowd showed their anger during the toss time too when the two captains - Hardik and Sanju Samson were in the middle to flip the coin. Former Indian player turned commentator Sanjay Manjrekar, who was bestowed with the toss duties, also asked the crowd to "behave". "Match No 14 of the TATA IPL 2024 and we are all set for the toss here. I have got the two captains with me, Hardik Pandya, captain of the Mumbai Indians, big round of applause, behave," Manjrekar said at the toss as the crowd booed the 30-year-old.
MI failed to register their first win of the season for the third time as they went down to the Royals at their own fortress. RR bowlers - Trent Boult, Yuzvendra Chahal and Nandre Burger demolished the MI batting line-up to bowl them to 125 before the batters cantered their way to a six-wicket win after facing a bit of a jitter.
Boult began the act of destroying the MI batting and pushed the hosts on the ropes with his opening over of two wickets. He dismissed Rohit and Naman Dhir for golden ducks before striking in his second over to remove the impact sub Dewald Brevis for another first-ball duck. Chahal owned the middle overs despite some consolidation act by Hardik and Tilak Varma, who made 34 and 32, respectively. MI were reduced to 125/9.
Even though they lost Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson and Jos Buttler inside the first seven overs, a new version of Riyan Parag held his cool to take the team home easily in 15.3 overs. Parag made 54 from 39 balls as RR sealed the third win.
