'It's a big auction next season. Who knows what's going to happen? We'll just have to take each day as it comes.'
Rohit Sharma is the "master of his own destiny" and Mumbai Indians head coach Mark Boucher isn't exactly aware about the franchise's most successful former skipper's plans ahead of the mega auctions for the next edition of the IPL.
India's current all-format captain was unceremoniously stripped of captaincy by the Mumbai Indians management, which brought in Hardik Pandya at the helm earlier this year. The move massively backfired and the team ended up last, with only four victories to its credit.
Despite an underwhelming season, Rohit ended as team's top-scorer with 417 runs, including a hundred and half-century, and got a standing ovation from a packed Wankhede after getting out in Friday's match against Lucknow Super Giants.
“To be honest, there hasn't been many conversations about Rohit's future at all. I spoke to him last night or the night before, just to do a little review of the season,” Boucher told the media at the Wankhede Stadium, in Mumbai, after Mumbai Indians suffered their 10th defeat this season.
“I said, ‘what's next for Rohit Sharma?' He said to me, ‘the (T20) World Cup'. (And) that's perfect. That's all I need to know about what Rohit Sharma's future is."
“For me, he's a master of his own destiny. It's a big auction next season. Who knows what's going to happen? We'll just have to take each day as it comes,” he said.
Boucher said Rohit had a season of two halves as a batter and despite finishing as highest run-scorers for MI, the former skipper would be disappointed with the outcome.
“It was almost a season of two halves for him. He started off really well, was hitting the ball sweet in the nets, got a great hundred against CSK as well,” Boucher said.
“We honestly thought that he was on a great path for us to go out there and get some good runs for us. Unfortunately, it's just the nature of T20 as well,” he added.
The former South Africa wicketkeeper-batter said Rohit continued to adapt to the new way of playing as an aggressive opener.
“He went out there trying to be aggressive, which is the new way of playing as an opening batter. He got a couple of low scores, which unfortunately didn't help us in that particular situation as well.
“But he finished off with a fantastic knock -- a competition of two halves for him. If you had to ask Ro, he'd probably say that it was an average season for him, especially with the start that he got off to,” Boucher added.
Boucher admitted Mumbai Indians did not play up to their potential and losing some of their bowling strength even before the tournament began hurt their chances. He did not name anyone, but not getting the services of left-armer Jason Behrendorff did hurt Mumbai Indians.
“Disappointing, to say the least,” Boucher replied, when he was asked for his assessment of the season.
"I thought after the auction that we had, we (had) identified our bowlers as something we wanted to strengthen and we felt that we did that.”
“Obviously, at the beginning of the season, losing two of them (Jason Behrendorff and Dilshan Madushanka) wasn't great for us, but I still think that we had some great options on paper.
“I thought that we would do a lot better than what we've done. We just haven't managed to put our batting and our bowling together in one single match. There's always been one that's let the other one down, which is unfortunate.”
