The calls for appointing Hardik Pandya as the India T20I captain are growing by the day after the team’s yet another disappointing campaign in a world cup. Under Rohit Sharma, the team had a better result than last year when they exited in the group stage itself but this time in Australia, they made it as far as the semis before a humiliating defeat to England.
The likes of Sunil Gavaskar, Harbhajan Singh and Krishnamachari Srikkanth have advocated handing over the T20I captaincy to Pandya on a full-time basis and start building for the next world cup which is in 2024 (T20).
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However, former India cricketer Irfan Pathan has pointed out the potential dangers of having a fast bowling allrounder as the captain.
Pandya has a history of injuries and Pathan feels that this could become a concern for the team should he end up missing a big tournament because of that.
“I’m not saying that if you change the captain you change the result, if you go like that you’re not going to change the result. And with Hardik Pandya, you need to understand, we all need to understand, that he’s a fast bowling all-rounder. He has injury issues as well,” Pathan said on Star Sports.
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“What if he is your captain who is getting injured right before the World cup? And if you don’t have any other leader ready, you’ll be in a mess,” he added.
To address that potential pitfall, Pathan suggests grooming not one but two leaders so that in the eventuality of one missing out a major tournament, the other is ready to step up.
“So, what I personally think is that Hardik Pandya is a leader, who has done very well in the Gujarat Titians, won IPL, won the championship trophy. You need to find not one, but two leaders going forward to build their mark. You know just like we talk about openers – we need to have a group of openers, we also need to have a group of leaders,” he said.
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