Team India To Hit Captaincy Crisis Soon?

The latest buzz from Indian cricket comes from the IPL, where the 5-time champion Mumbai Indians have made a major 'legacy building' change going into the 2024 season. In what comes as a surprise, shock, and bittersweet development for some, all-rounder Hardik Pandya has replaced Rohit Sharma as the new MI skipper.

Rohit Sharma took over the captaincy reins of the Mumbai Indians in 2013 and achieved extraordinary feats in a leadership tenure that lasted for a decade. Under Rohit, the Mumbai Indians captured five IPL titles and one CLT20 title, and with it, they emerged as the most successful captains alongside MS Dhoni for the Chennai Super Kings.

As expected, Rohit Sharma fans are angry, gutted, and frustrated with MI's decision to remove its most successful skipper unceremoniously. To add fuel to the fire, the franchise decided to hand the captaincy reins to someone who, a couple of years ago, wasn't even retained.

For Junior Pandya, it is indeed a 'Hardik' homecoming with MI. He not only gets back to the franchise with whom he started his career in 2015 but now also gets to lead them. But why is there so much resentment among Mumbai fans for Hardik, who was once their very own local boy, traded from Gujarat?

In addition, it was Hardik Pandya who unofficially replaced Rohit Sharma as the next T20I Indian skipper after the 2022 T20 World Cup semifinal against England at the Adelaide Oval.

The answer to that lies in the latest developments since the 2023 World Cup Final loss to Australia in November.

Who will lead Team India after Rohit Sharma?

The million-dollar question remains unanswered as to who will be the regular Team India skipper across formats post the Men's ODI World Cup, where India finished as runners-up.

The BCCI decided to evade the 'captaincy' bouncer and decided to name three different skippers for three formats for the South African tour. In the absence of veterans Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli , who opted for rest after a grueling World Cup campaign, they decided to miss the white-ball leg of the African Safari.

Suryakumar Yadav led India in T20Is, and now the onus is on KL Rahul to lead the Blues in ODI format. For the two Tests, Rohit Sharma will be back as the Indian skipper, but the big question is: for how long?

Team India is spoiled for choices, but is anyone captain material?

The last two years in particular have seen Indian cricket captaincy being thrown at players like musical chairs. Ever since Virat Kohli decided to quit the T20I captaincy at the end of the 2021 World Cup in the UAE and was later sacked as ODI captain, thus literally forcing him to quit Test captaincy at the start of January 2022.

Since then, the national cricket team has had multiple skippers across formats.

INDIAN CRICKET TEAM CAPTAINCY CIRCUS SINCE JANUARY 2022

• In Test cricket, since Kohli's departure as full-time captain, India has been led by Rohit Sharma in nine Tests, KL Rahul has stood in for Rohit Sharma in three Tests, and Jasprit Bumrah stood in as captain in the rescheduled Test against England in Birmingham in July 2022, when Rohit was injured, and KL Rahul was left out of the team due to poor form.
• The scenario is similar in ODIs too. Since November 15, 2021, after the T20 World Cup in the UAE, India has been led by four captains, including Rohit Sharma. While the Hitman has led India in 35 matches, KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan are tied apiece at nine ODIs, and Hardik Pandya too has chipped in with three matches as skipper.
• In T20Is, multiple players have captained India in the past two years. While Rohit Sharma's reign as T20 captain ended in Australia last year with 32 matches, Hardik Pandya, the unofficial successor, took over and led India in 16 matches.
• Other than Rohit and Hardik, Team India's T20 captaincy became a musical chair for the selectors, who gave chances to Jasprit Bumrah, Rishabh Pant , KL Rahul, and now Suryakumar Yadav, based on seniority and impact in the side.
• Opener Ruturaj Gaikwad also led India in T20Is in three matches, but that was the Asian Games Men's Cricket competition in Hangzhou.
• Another captaincy candidate, Ravindra Jadeja , did his chances no good when he left CSK's captaincy during the middle of IPL 2022.

With so many captains on the side, one begs to ask the question: who is the leader amongst those part-time skippers?

With Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli well and truly hitting the last straps of their glorious international careers and no longer seen as an official captain option in the near future, an Indian cricket fan is forced to wonder whether the every-so-important job of leading the Indian cricket team will become a joke for the selectors.

A position that has been graced by greats like Nawab Pataudi, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, and MS Dhoni is taken ever so lightly by the BCCI post-Virat Kohli era.

For me, with all due respect to Rohit Sharma, he was always the stop-gap captain. He was the designated vice-captain for Kohli and always did a commendable job when given the opportunity. Despite his IPL success, Rohit was unable to become the regular India captain until Kohli decided to put a full stop to his captaincy career.

The transition that fans saw from MS Dhoni to Virat Kohli and from Kohli to Sharma has suddenly disappeared from the system. Over the past couple of years, there has been no one next in line to take over the mantle from Rohit Sharma. Post the 2023 ODI World Cup, Indian cricket fans don't know who will be their next full-time captain. The long-standing procedure of a vice-captain taking over as captain seems to be diluted in the current Indian cricket captaincy circus.

As far as Test cricket is concerned, things don't look bright in that department as well. Rohit Sharma will kick off India's WTC 2023-2025 cycle, but at 36 and with consistent fitness issues, it remains to be seen for how long he will lead India in red-ball cricket. While Jasprit Bumrah has been named as the current vice-captain, is he a long-term prospect given his recurring injury issues?

To sum it up, Indian cricket is at a crossroads, as far as captaincy is concerned. While Rohit Sharma's captaincy era comes to an end, both for India and for MI in the IPL, the national cricket team is in serious dearth of a regular captain who can go on and take the mantle forward. Options are many, but there is no true leader in sight for the moment.

Will Indian cricket pay big time for this? Only time will tell.

Also read: Come on Rohit and Virat, Let's move on

(The author is a cricket expert and has worked as a sports writer for broadcast and multimedia platforms for nearly a decade.)