Indian cricket team needs a new captain, especially in the T20Is and Hardik Pandya is the prime candidate if former players are to be believed. It’s been over nine years now since an Indian cricket team laid its hands on an ICC trophy with the recent World Cup in Australia being the latest global tournament from where they returned empty handed.
Rohit Sharma took over the T20I captaincy from Virat Kohli last year and led India into semifinals in his first ICC tournament in charge of the team. However, with age not on his side and the next T20 world cup in 2024, former India opener Krishnamachari Srikkanth has said that naming Pandya as captain should be a no brainer.
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“See if I was the Chairman of the selection committee, I would say that Hardik Pandya should be the captain of the 2024 World Cup, straight away, I’d put it that way number one,” Srikkanth said on Star Sports show Match Point.
“And start rebuilding a side right from today, that is from the New Zealand series which is going to happen in a weeks’ time,” he added.
Pandya though will be leading a new-look India T20I squad for the New Zealand tour starting later this week.
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“You start from today, the preparation for the World cup, you need to understand, starts 2 years in advance. So, you do whatever you want to do, the trial and error policy, do whatever you want, try it for one year, then you form a team and by 2023 make sure this is going to be at the level that is going to play the World Cup,” Srikkanth said.
Srikkanth cited the example of India’s previous world cup triumphs saying they won because of plenty of fast bowling allrounders.
“You need more fast-ball all-rounders. Let’s see, 1983 World Cup, 2011 World Cup, 2007 T20 World Cup, why did we win? We had many fast-ball allrounders and semi allrounders. So, to identify these guys – guys like (Deepak) Hooda, like Hooda, there are going to be so many more Hoodas,” he said.
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