New Delhi: Team India has undergone a significant hierarchy change after their victorious T20 World Cup 2024 campaign. Changes in the coaching staff were already planned before the final, with Rahul Dravid’s departure expected. Additionally, two other changes took place after the T20 World Cup final when India’s star batters Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma announced their retirement from the shortest format of the game in international cricket.
With Rohit continuing as skipper in ODIs and Tests, questions arose regarding his successor in the T20I format. Hardik Pandya was a widely expected candidate to lead India in the shortest format, having been the vice-captain at the T20 World Cup. However, the BCCI named Suryakumar Yadav instead. While unexpected, the 33-year-old perfectly meets all the requirements for the captaincy role.
There has been much discussion about who will replace Kohli and Rohit as India’s next openers in T20Is, with Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal being the frontrunners. Abhishek Sharma and Sai Sudharsan are also strong contenders.
Former India fielding coach R. Sridhar revealed that Suryakumar Yadav’s consistent availability could be a main reason for his appointment as T20I captain. “I think the reason was addressed by the chairman of the selection committee Ajit Agarkar in the media itself. The very fact that Surya is someone who will be on the park for every match India is playing and not being bothered about workload monitoring is something which has tilted the scales in his favour, in terms of captaincy. Some of the matches he has captained India, when Rohit and Hardik were not available, has given confidence to the BCCI that he can do an excellent job,” said Sridhar.
“He has been vice-captain and was at KKR before that when Gambhir was the captain, he’s obviously been good with Mumbai Indians when they need him. He is someone who has exhibited leadership qualities throughout his tenure of being with the Indian team. That’s held him in good stead, again falling back to his rapport with the other players, how they look up to him. He is the no. 1 T20 batter in the world, that is something which goes in his favour as well. The confidence, the ability to lead the team both on and off the field, the availability of the player for all matches, his cricketing acumen, all these factors have tilted the scales in his favour,” he added.
Suryakumar Yadav showed great leadership qualities in his first T20I series against Sri Lanka as the full-time T20I skipper. He performed well with the bat and, surprisingly, with the ball, bowling a crucial last over in the third T20I against Sri Lanka and leading the side to a 3-0 series win.
