IND vs WI: Team India’s captaincy debates are far from over as we see a sharp rise in experts calling out India’s flawed captaincy during the recently held ICC World Test Championship Final 2023. The cricket pundits looked disintegrated with Rohit Sharma, who led India in yet another misfired attempt to get the coveted ICC title. Since then, the discussion on who should be India’s next test captain after Rohit Sharma has been on.
While some experts indicated reverting back to Virat Kohli, who relinquished his leadership position following India’s test defeat against South Africa in 2021, some have given their varying opinions on who should be Team India’s next test captain.
Notably, the ceremony of passing on of test baton from Rohit Sharma to someone other is not on BCCI’s immediate plans. The richest cricket board seems to be satisfied with the leadership of Rohit Sharma for the time being. However, somewhere in the back of their heads, there would be some thoughts of who could be the next probable candidate to lead India in the traditional format once Rohit Sharma steps down from his duties.
Speaking on the same lines, Wasim Jaffer reckons Ajinkya Rahane could potentially become a test captaincy candidate after incumbent Rohit Sharma for the Indian team should he manages to overcome his batting inconsistency.
“Rahane will have to show consistency in his game, which has been his problem even though he has played 80-90 Tests (84),” said Wasim Jaffer while speaking on Jio Cinema on Friday.
Jaffer believes Ajinkya Rahane has the ability to serve Indian test cricket for some years and could be India’s next test captain after Rohit Sharma if he manages to survive his shocks of inconsistency.
Ajinkya Rahane, India’s Next Test Captain after Rohit Sharma: Wasim Jaffer
“Consistency has been an issue, he will have to overcome it because India have a good captaincy option in him after Rohit Sharma is done. Rahane will have to make runs, and then everything else will follow,” he added.
The former Indian batter admitted that Ajinkya Rahane lost the battle with Rohit Sharma for the test captaincy due to his poor run of form back in February 2022. Had Rahane continued his sublime touch after he led India to a historic Border Gavaskar Trophy win in 2021, even with a depleted Indian side, there was no one who could have denied him the role.
“If his form was great from that Australia series after that 36 all-out, the way he led, scored a hundred in Melbourne… had his form remained the same, he would have been the next Test captain. But he lost his form and got dropped,” he said.
The Indian batting stalwart lost his form post his exploits in the BGT 2021 and subsequently lost his place in India’s test squad. He had to go back to the drawing board to figure out what went wrong for him to again resurrect his career in red-ball cricket. Rahane reinvented himself with a stint in the IPL 2022 and got back his position in the Indian squad for the ICC WTC 2023 Final in England.
“However, he reinvented himself in the IPL and got a chance in the WTC final. He was appointed the vice-captain as well, because the Indian selectors see a good leader in him. He still has age on his side but he needs to score runs, if he does not then he will find it difficult,” he added.
It’s important to note that Ajinkya Rahane made an impeccable test comeback during the marquee WTC FInal against Australia in the Oval. In fact, he was the only Indian batter who was hard to get rattled away with by the Aussie bowlers. In the two innings of the marquee WTC event, Rahane scored 89 and 46 runs respectively. However, his scores in the subsequent West Indies test series are discouraging.
The vice-captain of the Indian test team for the tour ongoing tour of West Indies scored three runs in the first IND vs WI test and then got dismissed at a score of eight in the ongoing second IND vs WI test.
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