Sanjay Manjrekar Gives His Views On Whether India Need Split Captaincy
Published - 19 Jun 2020, 08:06 PM | Updated - 23 Aug 2024, 12:30 AM
The talks over split captain in Indian cricket circle has been going on for quite some time now. The extra responsibility on the shoulders of Virat Kohli has coincided with emergence of Rohit Sharma as one of the leading batsmen in the world as well as a captain in IPL.
And while Virat Kohli has done really well as captain across formats, there have been calls from several quarters to make Rohit Sharma the T20I captain in order to reduce the pressure for the India captain. However, former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar believes that India, at the moment, does not need to have split captaincy across formats.
In the latest video uploaded on his official Youtube channel, Sanjay Manjrekar answered some of the questions posted by his Twitter followers. On being asked whether split captaincy is something that India needs, Sanjay Manjrekar said: “Now, my theory of split captaincy is that you don’t go looking to have split captaincy.
“So if you are fortunate to have a captain, who is good in all three formats and still a good captain, then you don’t need split captaincy.
“At the moment, you have Virat Kohli, who is excellent in all three formats, so there is no need for India to look at split captaincy. There might come a time in the future, who knows India might start looking for split captaincy,” he added.
Traditionally, Indian cricket has not been an admirer of split captaincy. Virat Kohli had taken over as Test captain only after MS Dhoni retired from the longest format of the game. Prior to that, Dhoni was the captain across formats. Virat Kohli has been leading the team across formats since Dhoni stepped down as T20I and ODI captain at the start of 2017.
Sanjay Manjrekar further explained the situation which might compel Indian cricket to have multiple captains, opining:
“If India come to a situation where they have an excellent Test captain and Test player, but not good enough to be in 50 over and T20, then maybe you have a different captain. But, India at the moment are quite blessed and in the past as well, Dhoni was the same, when he was captaining all three formats, he was pretty good in all three formats.”
