How quickly the world can change.
Just over two weeks ago, Hardik Pandya had reached the pinnacle of his career. He was arguably the MVP in the final of the T20 World Cup, a tournament he had lit up with bat and ball, and the world’s No. 1 allrounder in T20Is. With Rohit Sharma retiring from that format after India’s victory, Hardik, his deputy, may have felt the captaincy was his by right.
It hasn’t turned out that way. The first captain of a close-to-full-strength India T20I squad in the post-Rohit, post-Virat Kohli era isn’t Hardik. It is, instead, a man Hardik captains in the IPL, Suryakumar Yadav.
Hardik doesn’t even have the consolation of vice-captaincy. That role has gone to another player he has captained in the IPL, Shubman Gill, who is now also vice-captain of the ODI side.
Over the last eight months, India have lost one World Cup final and won another. Three ever-presents have retired from T20Is, and a hugely impactful head coach has moved on. It’s time for a new era in white-ball cricket, and the selectors have communicated, very clearly, what they think it will look like.
The figurehead isn’t either of the captains, but the captain-in-waiting, Gill, and he might not be waiting all that long. Rohit, the Test and ODI captain, will turn 38 next April, between the Champions Trophy and the World Test Championship final, and will be 40 when the next ODI World Cup begins. It will be a feat of consistency, endurance and desire if he is still playing for India then, let alone captaining them.
Gill is 24 now, and his graph – apart from the blip of missing out on the T20 World Cup – has only risen over the last two years. He enjoyed one of the great years of any ODI batter in 2023, became the captain of an IPL franchise, and earlier this year, in an intensely fought Test series against England, showed both his quality as a batter and his leadership attributes while making the rushed step up from junior to senior in a transitional line-up lacking a number of experienced stars.
It would have surprised no one that he was India’s second-highest run-getter in that series, and that he scored two hundreds and averaged 56.50. How he did this, however, was a revelation: this most fluent of strokeplayers had to graft, make technical adjustments from innings to innings, ride out difficult periods, and find ways to score runs on difficult surfaces. He did all that, and his embrace with Rahul Dravid after playing his most Dravidian innings to date – an unbeaten, match-winning, fourth-innings 52 in Ranchi containing just one boundary – seemed like a coming-of-age moment. It’s possible that the decision-makers in Indian cricket watched Gill bat that day and saw a future captain in him.
It helps, of course, that Gill is a specialist top-order batter. Jasprit Bumrah is India’s most valuable cricketer in every format, but he is a fast bowler and needs periodic rest and rotation to ensure he is present for all the big events. India can’t make him their full-time captain, therefore, even though he is among the most respected figures in their dressing room and one of its sharpest tactical brains.
Suryakumar, meanwhile, is for now a strictly one-format player and one-format captain. India gave him a horses-for-courses Test debut last year and batted him at No. 6 in their ODI World Cup campaign when an injured Hardik left the tournament midway, but it now appears that he has had his chance in the two longer formats. The T20 captaincy is recognition of Suryakumar’s pre-eminence in that format, and perhaps, too, of its increasing divergence from the other two.
But it’s not yet clear if it’s a long-term appointment or a trial run. India have tended not to split their captaincy unless it’s unavoidable – as it was when MS Dhoni retired from Tests. When Kohli stepped down from the T20I role three years ago, he stated his desire to continue leading in Tests and ODIs; he didn’t get his wish with the 50-overs side, and soon afterwards gave up the Test captaincy too.
Given that tendency to prefer an all-format captain – and coach, as the BCCI made clear while inviting applications for the role – Suryakumar’s appointment could be of an interim nature, with Gill being readied to take over at some point.
Where does all this leave Hardik? He is three years younger than Suryakumar, a year-and-a-half younger than KL Rahul, and only two months older than Bumrah, among the candidates who may have been in the conversation for current or future captaincy roles. Injuries, though, have cost Hardik a lot of playing time – he has only played 46 of India’s 79 T20Is since the start of 2022, and only 23 of their 59 ODIs.
Now that he is 30, he is only going to find it more challenging to keep himself fit and firing, and ready to bowl. Other factors may have contributed to his demotion too, but his fitness record was probably the clincher.
When he is fit, however, he remains a world-class white-ball operator, a batter capable of slotting anywhere from Nos. 4 to 7 and a bowler good enough to be one of three seamers. India have plenty of other all-round options – of whom Axar Patel, Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar and Riyan Parag are in both squads travelling to Sri Lanka – but none of them has Hardik’s effect on their team balance. Ravindra Jadeja has that effect in Test cricket, but even he isn’t a genuine allrounder in white-ball cricket.
But Hardik is that player when he is fit, and there’s no reason why he can’t continue being that player, if he keeps himself fit – at least in T20Is. It’s unclear whether he still wants to play ODIs – he is taking a break from 50-overs cricket at the moment – and whether the selectors will welcome him back if he makes himself available.
This, then, is the headache Hardik has given India’s selectors, coaches and captains right through his career. In talent terms, he could be an all-format superstar; his injury record, however, has all but turned him into a one-format player who is often unavailable – or only partly available, as batter alone – even in that format. This has probably put an end to his captaincy aspirations.
It must be a devastating thought for a player who has never played down those aspirations. But it could also spur the competitor in him to ask himself what the scale of his ambition is, and how much of himself he is willing to give in trying to realise it.
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