Former India player turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra is unsure whether the Mumbai Indians (MI) would want to retain their former captain Rohit Sharma or if he himself would want to stay with the franchise ahead of the IPL 2025 auction as well.He also added that the five-time champions have straightforward choices as their first three retentions as well. Rohit led MI to all five of their IPL titles. However, they traded in Hardik Pandya from the Gujarat Titans (GT) ahead of the IPL 2024 auction and made him the captain, replacing Rohit as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra said, “The first retention should be Jasprit Bumrah. I am convinced the most valuable player of this league is Jasprit Bumrah. If you have retained Bumrah, you will also want to keep Hardik. He is your captain. Suryakumar Yadav is the Indian captain and a 360-degree player. You 100 percent want to retain him. There is no doubt that Bumrah, Hardik and Surya are your top three choices, in whichever order you want. There will be a serious discussion on the fourth choice. Do you want to retain Rohit Sharma? That’s point one. Does Rohit Sharma want to stay here? That’s point two because if Rohit Sharma doesn’t want to stay, he will go. If you retain him, ₹18 crore will go. Will you want to retain Rohit for 18 crores?”
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However, in the same video, Aakash Chopra wasn’t sure whether the Mumbai Indians would retain either Tilak Varma or Ishan Kishan as their fourth capped retention as well. He also feels MI could retain Nehal Wadhera and Piyush Chawla as uncapped players too.
“Then Tilak Varma and Ishan Kishan. You have two other such players whom you might want to retain. Both are capped Indians. Will you want to retain them for 14 crores or 18 crores? I feel three are confirmed and after that, they might use the uncapped quota. They might consider retaining Nehal Wadhera. He is actually a good choice for four crores. He also played well in the last two years. Can you think about Piyush Chawla for four crores, because it’s four crores, it’s not too much. So you can retain two uncapped Indians,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
