With the sudden announcement of Rohit Sharma’s retirement, talks about future captaincy possibilities have started amongst Indian Cricket fans. Who deserves to be the captain is a debate of its own. But the real question is: Who is the right choice for India’s captaincy?
This is a very multi-faceted question but this article tries to give a brief answer to that question comparing and indulging in various scenarios. The first thing that we as ICT fans need to admit is that many players in the current squad are capable and to a certain extent, deserve the captaincy role for India. Among these players, some shoutouts are: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Suryakumar Yadav, etc, But moving forward, 4 candidates will most likely be listed for the role and be in BCCI’s plans. Let’s have a closer look at these candidates, moving from less likely to most likely.
4. Rishabh Pant
The kid from Delhi is now a grown-up man. The left-handed wicketkeeper-batsman debuted for India way back in 2017 as a mere 19-year-old. Right from his India debut, people knew that he had something special in him. At first, an understudy to Dhoni, Rishabh slowly made a place for himself in the Indian setup. Going on to become a three-format player for India before a slump in form made him start working harder on his cricket. After becoming a captain for his IPL team, Delhi Capitals, he kept on impressing everyone with his performances. During the T20I series against South Africa in June 2022, Rishabh was made India’s captain since KL Rahul suffered an injury and was ruled out of the T20I series. It was then that tragedy struck. Rishabh Pant got into an accident in January 2023 and couldn’t return till next year’s IPL where he made a stellar comeback as one of his team’s best players. His inclusion in the World Cup squad meant a lot to him and he made sure to prove that through his performances. Now, as one of the veterans of this new-face Indian team, the 26-year-old remains a good option for captaincy in the short as well as long run.
3. Jasprit Bumrah
The Player Of The Tournament, in T20 WC 2024, Jasprit Bumrah is a generational player if not anything more. As one of the senior members of the squad who has also previously captained India in the past, it would surely make sense to give the captaincy responsibilities in T20Is to Jasprit Bumrah. He captained the Indian contingent during their T20I series against Ireland. Moreover, his recent form and performances for India have been simply outstanding and one could argue that this pushes his case to be the future captain of India. There are a few reasons why this might never happen though. But we’ll discuss those reasons later on.
2. Shubhman Gill
Probably the most sane choice in the long run for India. The 24-year-old has a long career in front of him and if the start of his career is any indication, then the right-handed batsman has still a lot left on his plate to achieve. And the title of India’s captain might be one of those things to achieve in the future. The only thing holding him back probably is his lack of captaincy experience, with only 1 IPL season under his belt as captain where his team finished 8th in the points table. But this is about to change. Shubhman Gill has been named as the captain for the upcoming 5 match T20I series against Zimbabwe. This goes to show that he is in BCCI’s captaincy plans for the future. With his playing style suiting all 3 formats of the game meaning that he can even be the long term option to captain India across formats once Rohit Sharma steps down from Test and ODI cricket as well.
1. Hardik Pandya
Hardik Pandya is undoubtedly BCCI’s top captaincy candidate and now has been for sometime, especially in the T20I format. Hardik Pandya has impressed everyone whenever given a chance as a captain, especially during his two years as the captain of Gujarat Titans. When he led his team to 2 straight IPL finals and even won them the title in their first ever season. Post-injury, he has failed to impress as a captain though. His captaincy stint with the Mumbai Indians after making a comeback to the franchise was seen by many people as a failure as they finished their season dead last. But there were many external factors leading up to their disastrous season and right from the start the MI supporters had hated Hardik’s appointment as the MI captain. And Hardik’s being captain in the IPL is precisely why it’s difficult from Bumrah and Suryakumar Yadav to be considered as a potential captaincy candidate at the international level. Because it’s an unwritten rule that the Indian captain is always given a captaincy role at his IPL franchise… The last time this rule was broken, well it turned out not so good (Hardik being MI captain while Rohit was India captain). And since Mumbai Indians have chosen to be there captain for the next few years, and are very unlikely to let go of Jasprit Bumrah and SKY, it doesn’t seem likely that either of the two might be able to pull rank on Hardik Pandya when it’s time to play for India.
Furthermore, BCCI’s immediate choice for the captaincy role would likely be Hardik Pandya with Shubhman Gill being in contention to get the captaincy role in the future. Considering Hardik Pandya starts playing ODI cricket regularly as well, we might see Pandya get the white ball captaincy role while Rohit still being the captain in the longest format. But in 2-3 years time the attention will start shifting towards Shubhman Gill as he will be prepared to be India’s all format captain down the line.
