Gautam Gambhir vs Jay Shah vs Ajit Agarkar: Who decided to handover India's T20I captaincy to Suryakumar Yadav?

India's T20I and ODI squads for the tour of Sri Lanka have been announced with some surprising announcements. One of those announcements was the appointment of India's new T20I captain.

With Rohit Sharma no longer a part of T20I set-up, the selectors had a tough job to pick India's next T20I captain. They had two options for the role, Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav. Hardik Pandya was more suited to the role as he was the vice-captain when Rohit Sharma was the captain.

Going by the logic and Hardik's captaincy experience, he seemed ahead in the race. However, the selectors and the team management had other ideas. Instead of Hardik, Suryakumar Yadav was appointed India's next T20I captain.

The move was surprising as it was a sudden loss of trust in Hardik Pandya's leadership qualities. However, the reports claimed that Hardik Pandya's injury concerns and workload management played a big part in the decision-making. Pandya has suffered various injuries in his career so far which has forced him to miss some important tournaments as well.

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Gautam Gambhir favours Suryakumar Yadav over Hardik Pandya

But the man who has taken a huge leap in his career is Suryakumar Yadav. There were question marks over his international career a few years ago. But the talented batter has proved his critics wrong by establishing himself as the mainstay in India's T20I line-up.

Suryakumar Yadav was the top-ranked batter in T20Is for a long time before moving down to No. 2 in the list last month. He has been a consistent performer in the format irrespective of his struggles in Tests and ODIs. The selectors are thinking of a long-term solution by making him the captain.

Suryakumar Yadav has been excellent for Mumbai Indians in the IPL, which paved his way for an India call-up. He has played some eye-catching innings for the franchise with amazing consistency. Before playing for Mumbai, Suryakumar was part of Kolkata Knight Riders. He played four seasons for KKR and was also a part of their victorious campaign in 2014.

Suryakumar was also KKR's vice-captain when Gautam Gambhir was the team's skipper. It is believed that Gambhir wanted Suryakumar Yadav as India's T20I captain rather than Hardik Pandya. Surya has limited captaincy experience at this level and it will be interesting to see how he manages and rallies his team of youngsters.

His aim will be to start preparing a pool of players who can play in the T20 World Cup 2026, scheduled to be held in India and Sri Lanka. Although the tournament is far away, his work will start from the tour of Sri Lanka.

While Suryakumar Yadav is the team's new T20I captain, Shubman Gill has been appointed as the vice-captain of the side. Gill was India's captain during the tour of Zimbabwe and his appointment as the vice-captain is a clear indication that the selectors are looking at the future.

Hardik Pandya goes out of leadership group

This means that Hardik Pandya has totally fallen out of favor and will be out of the leadership group now. According to the reports, his disastrous season as a captain of Mumbai Indians in IPL 2024 has seen many experts lose faith in his abilities. In IPL 2024, Mumbai Indians finished last in the points table.

It is also believed that Hardik's leadership skills and decisions didn't impress the selectors. It didn’t help that “he could never win the dressing room at MI and many felt he couldn’t be trusted to rally the national team together,” an official said to Hindustan Times.

According to the reports, when the selectors spoke to Hardik Pandya that they were looking at Suryakumar Yadav as the captain, the allrounder was informed that he is still looked as a big asset to the team as a fast bowling allrounder.

"Hardik was also reminded by Gambhir on the call, that he was looking forward to see him bowl his full quota in ODIs", an official said to Hindustan Times.