File photo of Sanjiv Goenka and Rohit Sharma© Twitter

Mumbai Indians and Lucknow Super Giants’ IPL 2024 campaign ended on Friday. Both teams could not qualify for the playoffs. For Mumbai Indians, the removal of Rohit Sharma became a news and its impact hounded them till the last match. Current captain Hardik Pandya was booed and clearly he didn’t enjoy the support of the MI fans. For LSG, though they came close to the playoffs, an animated discussion between owner Sanjiv Goenka and skipper KL Rahul garnered a lot of negative publicity.

In their last game, LSG beat MI in the teams’ last match of the IPL 2024. Post that, Goenka had a lengthy chat with Rohit. The visuals of it started speculation on the internet. 

There has been speculation that Rohit might leave MI this year.

Sanjiv Goenka asked Rohit Sharma mobile number and saved his number. What’s cooking here??

Rohit Sharma in LSG… #RohitSharma pic.twitter.com/sPN27HitWv

— Mufa Kohli (@MufaKohli) May 17, 2024

Sanjiv Goenka inviting Rohit Sharma for Dinner at his home and Rohit Sharma can’t deny. #rohitsharma pic.twitter.com/KhUArnuLwb

— Mufa Kohli (@MufaKohli) May 17, 2024

Sanjiv Goenka having a conversation with Rohit Sharma. #RohitSharma #MIvsLSG pic.twitter.com/RjTTqwhSqh

— Shamim. (@ShamimCricSight) May 17, 2024

Rohit Sharma with LSG owner Sanjiv Goenka . pic.twitter.com/afIZZFYEKn

— Vishal. (@SPORTYVISHAL) May 17, 2024

Rohit Sharma admitted he could not live up to the batting standards expected from him in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 for Mumbai Indians, adding that despite his poor outing, his focus was to be in the right zone and work to iron out his flaws. Rohit, who was replaced by Hardik Pandya as MI’s skipper ahead of the 2024 season, ended his tournament with a stunning 38-ball 68. Overall, Rohit amassed 417 runs in 14 innings at an average of 32.08 and a strike-rate of 150, including a century and fifty.

“As a batter, I know I didn’t live up to the standard. But, after playing for all these years, I know that if I overthink, I won’t play well. All I try is to stay in a good mindset, in the right zone, keep practicing, and improve on all the flaws in my game. That’s all I kept doing,” Rohit told JioCinema.

MI had a below-par time in IPL 2024, ending with an 18-run defeat to Lucknow Super Giants at the Wankhede Stadium on Friday, to conclude their season at the bottom of the points table.

“Our season didn’t go according to plan. We blame ourselves for this because we made too many mistakes during the season. We lost many games that we should have won, but that’s the nature of the IPL. You get a few chances and when those chances come, you must grab them,” added Rohit.

His next assignment will be to captain India in the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup in the West Indies and the USA. India will play their only warm-up match against Bangladesh on June 1, before opening their campaign against Ireland on June 5 at the 34,000-seat modular Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York.

With IANS inputs

KL Rahul‘s run of below-average scores in the IPL 2024 continued on Tuesday with the Lucknow Super Giants skipper falling for just 5 in a match against Delhi Capitals. Chasing 209, Rahul was a crucial cog in the wheel for LSG. His dismissal was a major blow, not just from the match’s perspective but from LSG’s playoff chances too. LSG now are all but out of the playoff race. Even if they win their last league game by a humongous margin, it still looks very unlikely that they will go through. 

After KL Rahul’s dismissal, LSG owner Sanjiv Goenka gave a very calm reaction. Earlier, Goenka’s animated chat with KL Rahul after LSG lost to SunRisers Hyderabad by a big margin went viral. The two have since met and things seems normal now. Goenka even hosted Rahul for dinner on Monday. Then, Goenka even applauded a catch by KL Rahul during the match vs DC. 

All that, however, did not stop social media users from having a go at Goenka for his reaction when Rahul was dismissed.

Goenka smiling after KL Rahul’s wicket pic.twitter.com/R0K4BVteSN

— Div (@div_yumm) May 14, 2024

Cunning smile by Sanjiv Goenka

Kl Rahul don’t deserves this

Come to RCB @klrahul

#DCvLSG pic.twitter.com/nlq1X72cR1

— (@DilipVK18) May 14, 2024

Sanjiv Goenka smiling after KL Rahul’s wicket, this guy is venomous as hell. pic.twitter.com/rFFCvWAG8W

— TravisBickle (@TravisbickleCSK) May 14, 2024

After the loss vs SRH, not only KL Rahul, Goenka could be seen having an intense discussion with LSG coach Justin Langer.

Now, Justin Langer has opened up on the subject. “I was so surprised by the reaction. It was incredible. I thought about it a lot for the last four days. There are not very many surprises in my life. I have had four surprises in my life. They were the four sexes of my daughter, when they were born, because I had no idea. And they kept coming out. I said, ‘It’s a girl’. Four girls but we didn’t know. It was a great surprise, as we did not know. When I saw the reaction the other night, it was the fifth surprise of my life,” said Langer to RevSportz.

“Anyone who knows Mr. Goenka or KL Rahul knows they are the calmest and most peaceful men on the planet. When I saw there were some arms going about, I thought, ‘Woah, I have never seen this before.’ When I listened to the conversation, it was just about where our plan went wrong in the game, and it went wrong.

“That is the funny thing about the aftermath of what happened. No one knew what was said. I am so surprised by the birth of my daughters because it was all about the plan of our game and where it went wrong. It was just cricket talk. We are just laughing about it, and it has been such an awesome relationship between Mr. Goenka, his son, KL, and myself,” Langer added.

IPL 2024: Sanjiv Goenka with KL Rahul after the DC vs LSG match.© X (Twitter)