Big changes have taken place in Team India once again and without any official announcement, the BCCI has expressed its intentions only in gestures.
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The Indian cricket team saw a lot of changes in this year i.e. 2022 as compared to the last few years. The stature of many decreased, some increased. Someone’s stature decreased after increasing, while someone on the verge of being dropped from the team has now become the biggest star. This was also reflected in the last team selection of the year by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, in which the status of two friends changed completely – KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya. From Test to T20 and ODI, the stature of Rahul, who is considered as the future captain of India, has decreased and his place has been taken by Hardik Pandya.
On Tuesday, December 27, the BCCI’s selection committee announced the team for the T20 and ODI series against Sri Lanka. Due to the non-formation of the new selection committee, the old committee did not officially announce it, but it is clear that Hardik Pandya will now be the captain of the team in T20 format. In the press release issued by the BCCI, it has only been told that regular captain Rohit Sharma will not play in the T20 series due to fitness. At the same time, Rohit will return for the ODI series and for this, Hardik has been made the vice-captain.
Hardik ‘snatched’ command from Rahul
That is, it is clear that even if Rohit Sharma continues to be the captain in both the formats for the time being, then Hardik Pandya has been promoted as his vice-captain. Recently, in the ODI series against Bangladesh and before that, in the absence of Rohit on the tour of Zimbabwe and South Africa at the beginning of the year, Rahul was handling the captaincy.
Now even though Rahul has been given leave in the T20 team due to marriage, but even after joining the ODI team, the vice-captaincy is in the hands of Hardik.
Rahul’s stature decreased
This gives a clear indication that even without an official announcement, the board has made it clear that Rahul will now stay away from the responsibility of leadership in white-ball cricket for some time. Anyway, Rahul has failed to impress with the captaincy on the occasions he got. On top of that, his performance in batting has also been disappointing. At present, he is the vice-captain of the Test team and he captained the team in both the Tests in Bangladesh, but due to not contributing anything with the bat, not only is he likely to be stripped of this responsibility in this format as well, but his place is now not secure.