Mumbai Indians Squad & Gujarat Titans Squad. (Photo Source: Twitter/@mipaltan & @gujarat_titans)

The season of Red-ball cricket is back in India with domestic cricket already underway in full swing. Along with that, the Indian team are gearing up for their first assignment in the Test format against England. Hence, the apex Indian cricket board, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the squad for the first two Tests of the five-match series which will commence on January 25, in Hyderabad.

In the same vein, several IPL franchises shared their post regarding their players who are going to play against the Three Lions. However, one of the major IPL franchises Mumbai Indians stirred a controversy around their post regarding Team India’s squad. Reason? MI missed out on displaying the Indian captain and their former skipper Rohit Sharma’s image in their post.

Consequently, fans took to social media to condemn their actions by calling it total disrespect. Moreover, some fans also bashed MI by calling it a big hint at a possible benching of Rohit in the upcoming IPL 2024 season. Instead, Mumbai chose to highlight vice captain Jasprit Bumrah along with KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer.

Notably, during the transfer window period, Mumbai Indians traded the former Gujarat Titans skipper Hardik Pandya and not only included him into the side but also announced him as their new captain replacing none other than ‘The Hitman’. This led to several speculations in the cricketing world and MI fans were left fumed by the franchise’s decision to suddenly make a huge change in their leadership. It is worthy to mention that Rohit has lifted the IPL title with the side as their leader. Now this move seems to have sparked yet another off-the-field controversy and several fans believe that things have gone downward spiral between Rohit Sharma and Mumbai Indians.

Gujarat Titans released their India squad poster with Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill

While this has opened a pandora box for the fans and cricket experts alike to speculate about the relationship between the former captain and Mumbai Indians, another IPL rival franchise in the form of Gujarat Titans with whom MI had struck a deal, posted their India squad announcement poster with Rohit Sharma and new skipper Shubman Gill’s images. Hence this led the fans to come down quite harshly on the Mumbai-based franchise.

Here’s how fans reacted to MI’s omission of Rohit Sharma from India squad poster: