The Mumbai Indians on Friday appointed star all-rounder Hardik Pandya to lead in next year’s Indian Premier League (IPL) season, replacing all-format India captain Rohit Sharma, who led the franchise to five title wins.
Pandya, 30, returned to his former franchise Mumbai only last month in a high-profile trade after a successful two-year stint with the Gujarat Titans.
The Mumbai Indians said the change in leadership was a part of their planning and thanked Rohit, the joint-most-successful captain in the tournament’s history alongside the Chennai Super Kings’ M.S. Dhoni.
Photo: Reuters
“It is part of legacy building and staying true to the MI philosophy of being future-ready,” Mahela Jayawardene, Mumbai’s global head of performance, said in a statement. “It is in keeping with this philosophy that Hardik Pandya will assume captaincy of Mumbai Indians for the IPL 2024 season.”
Jayawardene expressed gratitude to Rohit, 36, for his “exceptional leadership” since taking the reins in 2013.
“His leadership has not only brought unparalleled success to the team, but has also solidified his place as one of the finest captains in the history of the IPL,” he said.
Rohit led Mumbai 163 times in the IPL and the Champions League T20, winning 91 games, drawing four and losing 68.
However, the past three seasons have been a disappointment for the franchise. They failed to make the playoffs in 2021 and last year, and departed in the knockout stages this year with a loss to the Titans in the second qualifier.
Rohit is India’s all-format captain, but has not played a T20 international since their semi-final defeat at the T20 World Cup in Australia last year.
Pandya has led India in 13 of their past 25 T20Is.
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For