Is Rohit Playing His Last IPL Season?

'After speaking with the whole Mumbai Indians group, we thought may be this is an opportunity for him to step in for his last year or so.'

Mumbai Indians Head Coach Mark Boucher has revealed that Rohit Sharma's removal from the team's captaincy was a tough decision and meant to free him as a batter given that he did not have a great run in the past couple of seasons.

'We saw a window to get Hardik (Pandya) back as a player,' Boucher told the South Africa-based SmashSports podcast.

'We still want him (Rohit) as a player, absolutely, because we know he has some great value to add and just go out there and actually enjoy it, without the hype of being the captain,' he said.

'He probably hasn't had the best couple of seasons with the bat, but he has done well as captain and I just thought after speaking with the whole Mumbai Indians group, we thought may be this is an opportunity for him to step in for his last year or so,' Boucher said.

'He will still captain India so that hype is going to be there but when he steps into the IPL, maybe take that extra bit of pressure off him as captain and maybe we get the best out of Rohit Sharma...playing with the nice smile on his face and spending time with the beautiful family that he has got, there's no easy way to do it,' Boucher added.

'A lot of people don't understand this in India and people get quite emotional about it...it is more of a cricketing decision that was made...it will bring the best out of Rohit as a person and a player and let him just go out there enjoy and score some good runs.'

MI, in the most talked about one-way 'all-cash trade' in IPL history, bought back Hardik Pandya after his successful two-year stint with Gujarat Titans. The team subsequently named him MI skipper, replacing Rohit who led the side to five IPL titles.

Ritika Sajdeh, Rohit's wife, reacted to the interview on Instagram.

'So many things wrong with this,' Ritika wrote in the comments section of the Smashsports podcast.