When India’s squad for the Sri Lanka series was announced, a surprise hit everyone as Hardik Pandya, whose name was everywhere as the potential captain of the T20I team, was ousted from the role, and the slot went to Suryakumar Yadav. The captaincy change was due to Rohit Sharma deciding to hang up his pads in the shortest format of the game.
Questions were raised. After all the things Hardik has done in the 2024 T20 World Cup and being incredible in the final to snatch the game from Proteas, fans argued that Hardik deserved the captaincy. This argument even got stronger as the inconsistency of SKY’s form also became a big question mark.
Another thing that bothered the fans was the promotion of Shubman Gill as the vice-captain of the team. Pandya not only lost the race for the captain but also lost his vice-captaincy role. Shubman Gill has been terrible this year with the bat and with the captaincy when he was leading the Gujarat Titans in the IPL.
All these questions were stacked up and later released to India’s chief selector, Ajit Agarkar, and newly elected head coach, Gautam Gambhir, when they gave a press conference on Monday.
Check Out: Key Takeaways From the Gambhir-Agarkar Press Conference
Agarkar Explains Why Gill Was Promoted to Vice Captain
Agarkar said that he didn’t want the ‘Hardik Pandya and Rohit Sharma-like situation in the future’. When you hear this, your memory might go back to the recent IPL chaos, but that’s now what the selector is pointing at Hardik Pandya’s injury during the 2024 ODI World Cup. Pandya had to go out in between the tournaments. He later came back to the IPL but couldn’t perform well for the Mumbai Indians.
But the player came back strongly in the last T20 World Cup and showed the world how good he is. This should have sealed the captaincy for him, but the selectors decided to highlight the injury issues, which in the end cost him even his vice-captaincy position. Agarkar explains this.
“We don’t want a Hardik Pandya and Rohit Sharma-like situation in the future. Hardik Pandya was injured during the 2023 ODI World Cup and returned to international cricket for the T20 World Cup. Thankfully, we had Rohit Sharma around, and he agreed to lead India in the T20 World Cup. The situation became challenging for us as we were without our regular captain. To avoid this, we made Gill the vice-captain.
“He is a three-format player and still young. We want him to learn about leadership from senior players like Rohit. For Rishabt Pant, we felt it was important to first bring him back as a player. He was out of cricket for more than a year. We don’t want to burden him,” Ajit Agarkar said.
Also, Agarkar gave an explanation for KL Rahul not being promoted to any of the captaincy roles.
“KL Rahul hasn’t been a part of the T20I team for some time, and Gill has the acumen to succeed as a leader.”
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