Recent reports have suggested that Suryakumar Yadav would become the new T20I captain for India. With Rohit Sharma stepping down from the shortest format of the game at the end of the recent T20 World Cup 2024, the question was on the selection of the next captain for the national side in the shortest format of the game.
The reports have claimed that the newly appointed head coach of the side, Gautam Gambhir wants the middle-order batter to take the responsibility.
The same preference has been made by Rohit too. The prominent candidates to lead the team at the moment were Sky and Hardik Pandya, even though recent reports have claimed that the decision to hand over Suryakumar the responsibility is because of the all-rounder’s fitness issues late.
Many thought of Jasprit Bumrah becoming the next captain of the T20Is for India, but being an all-format player, his importance is quite much, as the selectors will mostly look to give him a break during these games. He will also hardly play any game for India in T20Is, till the end of the IPL.
Questions raise on Gautam Gambhir’s decision to appoint Suryakumar Yadav as the T20I captain
Suryakumar Yadav doesn’t have much experience leading a side, as he had done in the past for Mumbai, or occasionally for the Indian side against South Africa and Australia when the other members were rested at the end of the ODI World Cup.
Hardik Pandya has the pedigree of leading the Indian team for quite a few games, where he had already made the Gujarat Titans champions of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2022, before carrying them into the final of the competition in the very next year. Once he made a return to his old franchise- Mumbai Indians, his captaincy didn’t click.
The blue brigade ended their campaign with the wooden spoons, as the form of Hardik Pandya too wasn’t up to the mark. He could manage only 216 runs with the bat in 14 innings, at a strike rate of 143.05, with a best score of 46 runs, besides picking up 11 wickets at an economy of just under 11. When it comes to his overall performance in the league, the Baroda all-rounder has smashed 2525 runs at a strike rate of 145.62 and picked up 64 wickets at an economy of just over nine.
Suryakumar Yadav was always expected to get the captaincy role for Mumbai Indians in the future, in the absence of Rohit, but the management decided to go with Pandya. Sky is one of the confirmed members for India on the T20I side.
The Mumbai-born ended the last IPL in 2024 with 345 runs in 11 innings at a strike rate of under 170, with three half-centuries and one century. While, in his whole IPL career, the 34-year-old has smashed 3594 runs in 150 innings, at an average of under 150, with 24 half-centuries and a couple of hundreds, with the best score of unbeaten 103 runs.
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In the case of the captaincy record Hardik, he has led the national side in 45 games, winning 26 with a percentage of 57.77, while Sky has already lifted the trophy against Australia in the bilateral series.
India is set to announce their T20I squad for the Sri Lanka trip on Thursday evening, and it’s understood that Suryakumar Yadav has popped up over Hardik to be the next T20I captain, and will make a good partnership with the head coach Gautam Gambhir till the upcoming season of the next T20 World Cup in 2026, to take place in India and Sri Lanka.