Following Virat Kohli’s decision to quit captaincy in the T20I and Test cricket along with BCCI’s move to lay him off from the leadership of ODIs as well we have seen an ample amount of changes being made to the Indian cricket team. With the reign of captain Kohli coming to an end, Ravi Shastri also quit his role as the head coach of the team.
Currently, hitman Rohit Sharma has been serving as the Indian captain in all three formats with the new head coach Rahul Dravid. With this duo leading together the men in blue have been blossoming with success.
With the T20 World cup on its way head coach Rahul Dravid is all set to make the squad stronger than ever. Under his conduct, the team management is working in a way to better the talent of men in blue. Along the process, several unexpected choices and experiments have been made over the past many months.
Let us have a look at some of the uncanny decisions made by the head coach Rahul Dravid.Â
1. Shikhar Dhawan as the ODIs captain
Shikhar Dhawan’s use as the ODIs captain is a unique choice. This southpaw served as India’s captain back in the 2021 India tour to Sri Lanka. Under his leadership, the ODI series was won with great success. However, the men in blue fell short when it came to the T20I series.
Shikhar Dhawan is one of the star players of the current squad and thus he was given a chance to captain the team on their July 2022 tour to West Indies. India easily made a victory with a clean sweep of 3-0 in the ODI series. Dhawan has officially been chosen as the men in blue’s captain for the upcoming tour of India to Zimbabwe that is scheduled to take place from the 18th of August 2022.
2. Eight different captains in past ten months
In the past several months, the Indian cricket team has gone through a lot of experimentation with their captains. Since Dhawan led the Indian ODI team in their July tour to West Indies a lot of new captains have been frequently appointed. Over the past ten months, the men in blue have had several de facto leaders.
Their names are- Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, and Shikhar Dhawan. Although, Rohit Sharma is still the main commander in all three formats.
6 captains in the last 6 six months ,
BCCI is clearly struggling to find an all format captain after @imVkohli. And Virat Kohli missed only 4 games due to injury in his whole cricketing career. pic.twitter.com/KiSy8Wbuv9— Ashwin (@viratian_tweetz) June 30, 2022
3. Puts Rishabh Pant at the top of the order
Rishabh Pant, who is often regarded as the future of Indian international cricket brilliantly showed his prowess when he entered the field, to begin with, skipper Rohit Sharma. We are talking about the T20I series against England that took place on the 9th of July 2022.
Pant portrayed his potential as an opener when we hit sixes and four scoring a total of 26 before Reece Topley took him out. This was a startling experiment that drew applause but at the same time censure. However, in the future, this strategy may eventually turn out 100% effective.
We Never Gonna See Rishabh Pant As An Opener In Future, He Is Just Here To FINISH IT OFF. @RishabhPant17#RishabhPant | #PrincePant pic.twitter.com/qAH1kyX3k0
— Rishabhians Planet (@Rishabhians17) August 3, 2022
4. Suryakumar Yadav As An Opener
Suryakumar Yadav was India’s seventh T20I opener of the year, but it’s a job he is enjoying says ESPNcricinfo. There are many rising Indian batsmen who deserve the position in team 11 and SKY was finally bestowed with the greatest position. In the T20I series match against the West Indies, SKY was given a chance to start the match with Rohit Sharma.
In the first T20I, he scored 24 off 16, the second one followed by scoring 11 off 6, and in the last T20I, he scored a humongous 76 off 44 which helped India win the series. However, this change also came up with acclaim as well as condemnation.
Suryakumar Yadav was India’s seventh T20I opener of the year, but it’s a job he is enjoying#WIvIND
— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) August 3, 2022
5. Experimenting With Deepak Hooda
The performance that Deepak Hooda portrayed while playing the T20 Internationals against Ireland is beyond praiseworthy. He not just scored a magnificent hundred but also gave several amazing knocks in the follow-up matches. However, he was benched for both the upcoming series with England and West Indies.
Shreyas Iyer was given the duty to do the opening in the T20I match against West Indies. In the third T20I of the series, Hooda was added back to team 11 replacing Jadeja in the starting lineup. In the fourth T20I, he was finally made to play at number three due to the Iyer’s unsatisfactory performance.
#WIvIND
Why Dravid always pick Shreyas iyer over deepak hooda and Sanju samson in t20?
Why is he wasting other talent for his favouritism?— Raaja (@RaajaRasiya) August 1, 2022
These were some of the startling decisions made by the new head coach Rahul Dravid. While many are being appreciated some are even criticized. But all in all, the belief in him and the men in blue is as alive as ever.Â