Hardik Pandya was seemingly hard done after he was snubbed from India’s T20I captaincy when the BCCI selection committee overlooked him and made Suryakumar Yadav the captain. He has now received support from former Pakistani captain Rashid Latif.
Suryakumar Yadav was named the new T20I captain by the BCCI over Hardik, who served as Rohit Sharma’s deputy during the victorious T20 World Cup campaign. Hardik, who guided the Gujarat Titans to the IPL title, was anticipated to take over from Rohit. Still, head selector Ajit Agarkar cited the star all-rounder’s fitness worries as the reason why the BCCI chose Suryakumar over him for the key job.
In a news conference before departing for the Sri Lanka trip, Agarkar explained why Hardik was not chosen as Rohit’s successor in the shortest format.
“Hardik’s skill sets are difficult to find and fitness is difficult to find. we have got a bit more time and we can look at a few things. Fitness was a clear challenge and we wanted someone who was likely to be available more often. We have taken general feedback from the dressing room also,” Agarkar said.
Not only was Hardik Pandya not made India T20I captain, but he lost vice-captaincy as well in both white-ball formats.
‘Hand Hardik Pandya a certificate of being unfit’- Rashid Latif
Rashid Latif, a former Pakistan captain, has joined the chorus of ex-players questioning why Hardik Pandya has not been named India’s new T20I captain.
Latif, who is quite open about his ideas and opinions, believes that fitness is simply an excuse for not naming Hardik as captain and that if the selectors claim that the all-rounder has fitness concerns, they should issue him an unfit certificate.
“No, here they (the claims) just hand him a certificate saying he isn’t fit and there are concerns about his fitness. There are plenty of players who weren’t super fit but still became great captains. So, I think it was just an excuse. Because if Surya wasn’t around, then Rishabh (Pant) would have been the captain since you have to look at the future,” Latif said.
Hardik will now take on Suryakumar Yadav’s captaincy for the first time in the three-match T20I series against Sri Lanka. The three T20Is will occur in Pallekele on July 27, 28, and 30.
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