Rohit Sharma is already waiting in wings to take the T20I captaincy, says Ravi Shastri.
Former Indian head coach Ravi Shastri says the team’s senior-most cricketer Rohit Sharma is capable of taking up the leading role in T20Is and is ready with the wings. He further dwelled on the idea of split captaincy for the two formats (white ball matches and red ball matches) and reckons it to be a good option, especially in post covid world.
Ravi Shastri’s tenure as the Indian team’s head coach ended, last night, after India bossed Namibia in its final T20I World Cup match in Dubai International Stadium. Though, Shastri has failed to create his impressions over the ICC glories, he certainly took India to several history-making wins against the giant ICC teams during his five years stay.
“In Rohit, we have got a capable guy, he has won so many IPL titles. He has been the vice-captain of this side for a long time. He’s ready in the wings to take that job,” Shastri told reporters.
“It’s not such a bad thing because of the bubble and because of the amount of cricket being played,” Shastri said when asked about the idea of split captaincy.
Due to restrictions imposed by covid-19 and biosecure bubbles players are not allowed to go out as freely as they used to, in the past.
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“The players need to be rotated around and given the space they need to spend some time with their families and see their parents. When a guy doesn’t go home for six months, he might have his [close] family with him, but if he’s got parents and other family and you don’t get a chance to see them, it’s not easy at all.
India slipped down from its very own semi-final spot in the ongoing T20 World Cup 2021 after suffering two consecutive drubbings to start their campaign. Though they did a commendable job to turn things around a little bit in their next three matches, the qualification scenarios were out of their hands and more or less relied upon the performances of other sides in the group.
Ravi Shastri, who is reportedly keen on taking up the coaching duties of the new IPL franchise, further said that the team might not have won this year’s T20 World Cup but due to the presence of IPL, strong players will consistently be pushed into the side and India will remain the strongest side in the T20s.
As far as the T20 team goes, I think we’ll always have a strong team. We might have not won this World Cup but I think going forward you’ll continue to have a very strong team because the IPL throws a lot of young players into the mix. Rahul [Dravid] will have his own ideas on how to take this team forwards and I see it still being a very good team.”
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