Team India faced a devastating 0-3 series loss against South Africa in the ODI series which concluded last week. While the KL Rahul-led side produced indifferent performances in the first two ODIs of the series, the side came close to ending the tour on a winning note but fell only four runs short of victory.
The team had earlier conceded a 1-2 defeat in the Test series to Proteas, as the performances throughout the tour posed several questions over places of certain players in the squad as well as key decisions by team management. KL Rahul's captaincy was also a point of discussion after the series loss and Indian cricketer Manoj Tiwary spoke in detail about the 29-year-old's leadership skills.
Tiwary said that one cannot “groom” a captain and that leadership comes naturally to a player.
"First of all, I want to ask the selectors, "What did you see in Rahul as captaincy material?" Suddenly, they’re saying that they’re grooming him as a future captain. I don’t understand how you can "groom" a captain. A person is either a born leader or he isn’t," Tiwary told Sportskeeda.
“Captaincy comes naturally, it’s an inbuilt quality. Grooming a captain is possible, but the process will take a long time. It will take a player around 20 to 25 games to learn about decision-making, but even then success will not be guaranteed. See, every international match is important for India.”
{{/usCountry}}“Captaincy comes naturally, it’s an inbuilt quality. Grooming a captain is possible, but the process will take a long time. It will take a player around 20 to 25 games to learn about decision-making, but even then success will not be guaranteed. See, every international match is important for India.”
{{/usCountry}}Tiwary further said that while he is not critical of Rahul, the selectors need to be open about the thought process behind naming Rahul the captain of the side.
"Considering the kind of players we had, we shouldn’t have lost the ODI series 0-3. A few wrong decisions cost us the series. I’m not blaming Rahul for his captaincy, but I’m disappointed with the selectors, who should identify leadership skills in a player rather than "grooming" a captain. That’s why I want to ask the selectors what they saw in Rahul to make him the captain of India," said Tiwary.