Alongside all-rounder Hardik Pandya, former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir has selected Prithvi Shaw, who plays for the Mumbai and Delhi Capitals, as India’s future T20 skipper.
Pandya recently captained the Men in Blue in a T20I series against New Zealand.
Pandya is rumoured to succeed Rohit Sharma as captain of the national squad after leading Gujarat Titans to the IPL 2022 championship.
He led India in T20Is for the first time during a tour of Ireland, which resulted in a 2-0 series victory. In the most recent T20Is in New Zealand, he captained India to a 1-0 series victory.
Following India’s elimination from the T20 World Cup after losing to England in the quarterfinal, experts believe Pandya will take over the T20I team.
“Hardik Pandya obviously is in line,” Gambhir said at an event organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) here on Sunday. “But that’s going to be unfortunate for Rohit because I think judging his captaincy in only one ICC event is not the right way to probably judge him.”
Shaw made his Test debut in 2018 after leading India to the U-19 World Cup title and has played only four Tests since, till now he has only manged to appear in 12 international games. Despite this, Gambhir said he picked Shaw as captain because he feels that he would be a very aggressive captain.
“Prithvi Shaw is one I feel can be a very aggressive captain, a very successful captain because you see that aggression in the way a person plays the sport,” he said, adding that reports of the “off-field activities” of the batter is for the coach to tackle.
“The reason I’ve picked Prithvi Shaw, I know a lot of people talk about his off-field activities, but that is what the job of the coach and the selectors are,” Gambhir was quoted as saying in media reports of the event. “The selectors’ job isn’t just to pick the 15, but also to get people to walk the right path.”