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Hardik Pandya is set to become India’s new T20I captain. He will succeed Rohit Sharma, who announced his retirement from T20I cricket following the T20 World Cup final against South Africa in Barbados. This match saw India’s long wait for ICC international trophy success end.
The appointment of Pandya is not unexpected. He had been Sharma’s vice-captain in the USA and Caribbean and had previously led the side whilst Sharma took an international sabbatical from the format.
At the same time, it represents a change in fortunes for a player who, just a few months ago, had become a figure of hate in the Indian Premier League, to the extent that fans of his franchise even booed him.
It has been a roller coaster few months for Pandya. He was part of the India team hoping to win the World Cup on home soil last October, but he picked up an ankle injury in a group game against New Zealand, which brought an early end to his tournament.
A few months later, he was involved in a major player trade, as the Mumbai Indians paid the Gujarat Titans big money to bring him back to the franchise.
Pandya had played for the Indians between 2015 and 2021 and been part of the team that won three Indian Premier League titles.
However, he was released ahead of the 2022 season and joined the Gujarat Titans, one of the two new expansion franchises that year, along with the Lucknow Super Giant. With Pandya as their skipper, they won the title in their inaugural season and reached the final again the following year, eventually losing to the Chennai Super Kings.
Most fans of the Indians assumed that the plan was for Pandya to work under Rohit Sharma, the highly popular captain of the franchise, who had led them to five titles before eventually taking over as skipper at some time in the future.
When it was revealed that Pandya was replacing Sharma as captain with immediate effect, Indian fans were outraged, and they lost hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
With Rohit lukewarm at best in his endorsement of his new captain, Pandya had been transformed into a much-disliked figure overnight.
By chance, the Indians played against the Titans in Ahmedabad in the first game of the 2024 season, and he got a suitably hostile reception.
That trend continued wherever he went, and even the team’s fans in Mumbai were not slow to let him know what they thought.
His form suffered – he made 216 runs and took only 11 wickets for 387, sometimes not even bowling his full complement of overs in a match. Meanwhile, the team had an abysmal season and ended up finishing bottom of the table after the end of the regular season.
For a side that shares the distinction, along with the Chennai Super Lings, of having won the Indian Premier League title more than any other franchise, that was both unfamiliar territory and not good enough.
When the India squad was named for the T20 World Cup, and he was announced as vice-captain, many felt that he did not deserve his place in the team.
Therefore, it would have given him a great deal of satisfaction to prove his critics wrong with his subsequent performances in the USA and the Caribbean.
He took 11 wickets in eight matches and scored 144 runs, including some valuable late-innings knocks.
In particular, he had a big part to play in the final. He captured the all-important wicket of Heinrich Klaasen when the South African threatened to take the match away from India, and he was also given the responsibility of bowling the final over of the game.
Pandya has always remained tight-lipped about some of the personal attacks made on him, preferring, as he later told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that he prefers to answer criticism of his performances.
Rohit Sharma is now 37 years old, and although there had been speculation that he could still lead India into the next World Cup in two years, especially as it is on home soil – it will be co-hosted with Sri Lanka, he decided that it was time to step away after the T20 World Cup final.
It was mission accomplished as far as he was concerned, and with nothing left to prove, it was now time to hand the reins over to a younger generation.
With Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja also retiring from T20I cricket at the same time, this very much represents a changing of the guard for India. For all three years of playing in the spotlight that is Indian cricket have taken a physical and mental toll, and there is now a desire to reduce their international commitments.
Choosing Pandya means that India has somebody with experience at the helm—he has already played 93 T20Is for his country. The fact that Jasprit Bumrah is likely to be his vice-captain means that there are some wise heads in the leadership group.
There were other candidates for the job.
For example, the India side that is just touring Zimbabwe for a five-match T20I series is led by Shubman Gill—ironically, the man who succeeded Pandya as skipper of the Gujarat Titans.
However, that squad includes just a few members at the T20 World Cup and none who played in the final. Gill is just 24 years old, and whilst he may be tipped as a future white ball captain of India, that will likely be sometime in the future.
Others pressed the case for Shreyas Iyer.
In February, he was asked by the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) to play domestic cricket in the Ranji Trophy after he had performed poorly in red ball cricket. When he refused, claiming that he suffered a back injury, he was stripped of his central contract along with Ishant Kishan.
Although he subsequently played in the semi-final and final of the Ranji Trophy and subsequently won it with Mumbai, that was not enough for him to be reinstated.
After that, Iyer led the Kolkata Knight Riders to their third Indian Premier League title, beating the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the final.
That was not enough for him to even earn a recall to the Indian national team for the Zimbabwe tour, though, as the BCCI is not yet in a forgiving mood as far as he is concerned.
Pandya will only take up his duties in October when Bangladesh tours. They will play two tests followed by three T20is.
There will then be a gap as far as T20I cricket is concerned, with India playing first New Zealand and then Australia in the test series, which are unlikely to involve Pandya. He has made just 11 test appearances for his country; the last was nearly six years ago.
However, 2025 will see a ramp-up in activity as India prepares to defend their World Cup crown. Pandya will continue to be involved in the white-ball team and ODI cricket, with the next major tournament milestone next year’s Champions Trophy.
