Opinion

No Harm in Identifying New T20I Captain; If His Name is Hardik Pandya: Ravi Shastri

Written by Abhishek Patil

Former India head coach Ravi Shastri feels there should be no harm in India looking at the prospect of appointing a T20I captain in order to change their fortunes in playing the shortest format of the game.

Currently, Rohit Sharma is the Indian skipper across all formats. But India are being led by Hardik Pandya for the T20I series against New Zealand while Shikhar Dhawan will take over as the skipper in the ODI series against the Blackcaps as selectors decided to rest Rohit and other senior players after the end of T20 World Cup.

“For T20 cricket, there is no harm in having a new captain. Because the volume of cricket is such, that for one player to play all three formats of the game is never going to be easy. If Rohit is already leading in Tests and ODIs, there is no harm in identifying a new T20I captain and if his name is Hardik Pandya, so be it,” said Shastri in a virtual press conference organised by Prime Video ahead of first T20I at Wellington.

Former India left-arm pacer Zaheer Khan felt that processes of having multiple captains in the side were already in place. “I think there are already multiple captains. When you are taking about T20 right now, you have Hardik leading the side, then you have Shikhar for ODIs. Rohit has been there and Virat had been there. You look at the playing eleven who have been a part of the T20 World Cup.”

“There were so many captain who were a part of the squad, like Rishabh (Pant) has captained. All these players are more than capable. It’s just about the planning right now. Depending on the scheduling, planning and workload management, everyone has been seeing these changes. As we speak, these processes are already in place.”

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Abhishek Patil