The BCCI made the transition of India’s white-ball squad official on Tuesday, naming Rohit Sharma as the team’s new T20I captain and KL Rahul as his deputy. Virat Kohli’s last task as T20I captain, elimination from the T20 World Cup, will be followed by three home matches against New Zealand, beginning November 17 in Jaipur. The new head coach will be Rahul Dravid.
The 16-member squad that the national selection committee announced on Tuesday doesn’t have Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja, as they have been rested. A new-look pace bowling group has Bhuvneshwar Kumar as the sole link to the old one, to provide experience. But on a downward spiral, the upcoming series could be the 31-year-old seamer’s last chance saloon.
That Rohit would take charge from Kohli was one of the worst-kept secrets in Indian cricket. Going by his previous stop-gap stints as India’s captain in limited-overs cricket, Rohit’s style of leadership is more akin to MS Dhoni’s than that of his immediate predecessor.
Rohit has also led Mumbai Indians to five IPL titles. As this paper has already reported, he is also in line to take over the ODI captaincy in the near future, with Kohli helming the Test team. Indian cricket is not well conversant with split captaincy, save for a brief period when Dhoni had retired from Test cricket but continued for a couple of years as white-ball skipper.
After six months of bubble life, it was expected that a few senior players would cool their heels during the T20I series against New Zealand and apart from Kohli, Bumrah and Jadeja, Mohammed Shami too has been rested for this reason. All of them are expected to return for the two Tests that follow the T20I series.
