Veteran Indian batsman Rohit Sharma on Saturday celebrated his 11-year-long association with Mumbai Indians with an emotional video on social media. the franchise hailed their “legend” with the old action tweet ahead of the 2011 season.
Rohit began his IPL journey with the presently-defunct Deccan Chargers in the inaugural season and had even won the IPL trophy in 2009 season before he was roped in by the Mumbai-based franchise for US$2 million. Four franchises faced a mini battle in roping in Rohit, who had made his India debut in 2007. Royal Challengers Bangalore had opted for Saurabh Tiwary instead, Chennai Super Kings went ahead with Murali Vijay while Kolkata Knight Riders found the price of two million a tad too high. Mumbai won the battle and the rest they say is history.
Talking to Instagram, Rohit shared a few moments from his journey with the franchise as a Insta story.
Mumbai Indians, on the other hand, shared a picture of Rohit holding the elusive IPL trophy and along with the picture of the IPL auction tweet from January 8, 2011. They captioned it, “We’ll just leave this here. 11 seasons in Blue and Gold for Our Captain, Our Leader, Our Legend. #OneFamily #MumbaiIndians @ImRo45.”
Rohit was named the captain of the Mumbai Indians after former Australia captain Ricky Ponting had stepped down from the position midway through the 2013 season. They had finished second in the league stage before beating Chennai in the final. They also won the presently-defunct Champions League Twenty20 in the same season.
Recalling the season and the captaincy handover during his interaction with R Ashwin in 2020, Rohit had said, “He was not scoring runs so he decided to step down as the captain. Eventually, Ponting called me and I was given the captaincy. He actually was player-cum-coach during the 2013 season. He was always there to help me.”
