Hardik Pandya has captained India in three straight T20I series now because the official all-format skipper Rohit Sharma hasn’t featured in any T20I series after the T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia.
There is a shadow casted on the future of Rohit Sharma in T20Is, even though he has said he still isn’t done yet in the shortest format. The idea of split captaincy in the two white-ball formats was put up to head coach Rahul Dravid who denied being in the know of any such plans currently.
Senior India wicket-keeper Dinesh Karthik, who is also a close friend of both Hardik and Rohit, says “why not?”.
Dinesh Karthik pointed out that because of the focus on the ODI format due to the ODI World Cup 2023 later in October-November in India, the T20Is have taken a backseat, and India are due to play only one more T20I series until the ODI World Cup. Karthik says an official call on the captaincy – and Rohit’s future – can be expected only after the World Cup.
“If the case presents itself, why not? But right now, it is not right for me to say for two reasons. One, India are only playing three T20s after this until the 2023 World Cup, they face the West Indies after the IPL. Once that tournament is done, I think we will know exactly where things stand,” Karthik told Cricbuzz.
“If Rohit Sharma’s team doesn’t go on to do something special there, we could very well see a chance of split captaincy, I guess the opportunity will present itself at that point of time. Whereas if Rohit goes on to achieve something special, we will all like to think differently and give him a crack at the 2024 T20 World Cup if he himself is willing to play that,” he added.
Hardik Pandya shot up in the leadership group of Team India after he’d led the Gujarat Titans to the IPL 2022 title. Under Hardik’s captaincy, India have won 6 out of 9 T20Is matches when always he’d had a second-string unit to lead.
Dinesh Karthik is impressed by Hardik Pandya’s captaincy so far
“For the moment, I do believe that Hardik has done a phenomenal job. Case in point being the T20 that was played against Sri Lanka in Mumbai. That was a great game. Stopping Sri Lanka for 160 was a terrific effort on a day where there was little dew. He showed his captaincy prowess there,” said Karthik.
