The India Cricket Team squad for the upcoming series against Sri Lanka is set to be announced next week. But with no Rohit Sharma in the team, the captaincy is up for grabs. While Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul are fighting for the coveted job, the former is the leading candidate. But there are several reasons as to why Hardik wouldn’t be the good choice to lead India in the IND vs SL ODIs.
After the triumphs in the ICC T20 World Cup, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli announced their retirement from the shortest format of the game. Furthermore, the duo also got an extended break and won’t be a part of the India tour of Sri Lanka series. This means for the ODI team, either of Hardik or KL Rahul gets the skipper’s job.
Why Hardik won’t be a good captain?
Hardik Pandya is now the de facto captain of the T20I squad, but the ODIs is different ball game. This would be the first time that Hardik would be playing a ODI game in more than 6 months. This last outing was in the IND vs BAN clash in the ODI World Cup where he suffered an ankle injury and was ruled out for the remainder of the tournament.
Following his injury and recovery he played just T20 cricket. Hardik prepared well and returned for Mumbai Indians to lead the squad. Though it was not a successful stint, Pandya however played well in the T20 World Cup. But keeping up with the pace in ODIs, will certainly be a big job for Pandya.
Another reason would be KL Rahul is a senior player and is more suitable to lead the team. Furthermore comes the point of injury. Hardik is an injury prone athlete and thus doesn’t need too much pressure on him. With already T20I captaincy under his grabs, he can be far relaxed about the ODI captaincy.