Ever since India’s exit from the T20 World Cup 2022, several experts and cricketers have backed Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya to take over India’s T20I captaincy, replacing Rohit Sharma. Hardik Pandya has emerged as the idol successor of Rohit in white-ball cricket as he has impressed everyone with his captaincy style. In the recently-concluded T20I series against New Zealand, Hardik led India to a 1-0 victory. With this win, team India maintained their unbeaten run under the leadership of Hardik Pandya. He had earlier led India to a 2-0 series win in Ireland and now India has won the series in New Zealand 1-0 under him.
Former Indian cricketer Maninder Singh backed Shreyas Iyer as Rohit Sharma’s successor in white-ball cricket as he feels that Iyer is a good thinker of the game and has a positive approach. Notably, Shreyas Iyer is an integral part of India’s middle order in the past few years and performed amazingly well at the no.4 spot.
Speaking to Hindustan Times, Maninder Singh said that Iyer always looks for scoring runs. He said: “I’ve been saying this for the past 3-4 years, you know Shreyas Iyer is my favourite, whenever I have seen him lead any side, when he led the IPL side or anywhere, he looks like a good thinker of the game. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, and he is somebody who is very positive,”
He added: “You can see his approach when he bats, whenever he comes to bat he is looking for runs. He is not somebody who thinks that – ‘I’m gonna stay at the wicket for sometime, and then I start scoring runs’. If he doesn’t get boundaries from the word go, you can see him rotating his strike, he is looking for singles, trying to find the gaps and that’s his quality,”
Further, Singh also talked about Hardik Pandya, who is the front-runner in succeeding Sharma in T20 internationals. Singh feels that Pandya could be made the captain for the moment, but he hoped that Iyer should be given chances to play for India regularly. He said:
“For me, I still feel, I’ve said it earlier Hardik Pandya at the moment – you can make him the captain in white-ball cricket. But in my mind, its Shreyas Iyer, actually (a candidate) for the past 3-4 years. I really hope that we give him opportunities to play for India regularly in all the formats because he has a good brain,”
