Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya To Not Be Retained By MI Next Year, Says Virender Sehwag

Five-time champions Mumbai Indians (MI) have had one of the worst IPL seasons since the start of the tournament this year. The Hardik Pandya-led team is already out of the playoff race.

Since the start, when Hardik Pandya was named the skipper, things have gone declining for the side.

In the midst of this, former Indian cricket team star Virender Sehwag had a piece of interesting advice for MI management ahead of the IPL 2025 mega-auction. He took two names that should be on top priority for MI to be retained. And they are not Hardik Pandya and Rohit Sharma.

“If you get Shahrukh Khan,Amir Khan, and Salman Khan for one movie, it doesn’t mean it will be a hit film. You have to perform. There has to be something in the script. Look at these big names…they all have to perform. Rohit scored one hundred and it was in a losing cause. In the remaining matches, when did he perform? Ishan Kishan has not gone beyond the powerplay the entire season. So the only two players who are certain are Jasprit Bumrah and Suryakumar Yadav. If they have a third and a fourth, we’ll see,” Sehwag said on Cricbuzz.

Manoj Tiwary, who was also part of the panel alongside Sehwag, said: “I don’t think Rohit Sharma himself wants to be retained.” To which, the anchor then cheekily said: “I think somebody saw a viral video”.

The discussion then swinged towards a video involving Rohit Sharma and KKR’s assistant coach Abhishek Nayar. In the video, Rohit and Nayar could be heard talking about ‘things changing’. At the end of the video, the former Mumbai Indians skipper also said that “it’s his last”. Though the context of the conversation isn’t known, fans suggested that the two could’ve talked about the current situation at Mumbai Indians, especially Hardik Pandya’s appointment as skipper.

“Ek ek cheez change ho raha hai…Woh unke upar hai…Jo bhi hai woh mera ghar hai bhai, woh temple jo hai na maine banwaya hai(Everything is changing one by one… It’s on them… Whatever, but it’s my home brother, it’s the temple that I constructed).”

The video has been deleted by KKR from its handle after it went viral.