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'He is averaging 60-70. Was touted as next India captain 3-4 years ago': Jadeja's ideal pick amid captaincy rat-race
KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Shikhar Dhawan, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya and of course Rohit Sharma have all been handed captaincy – which makes one ponder: Is captaincy really that big a deal in Indian cricket anymore? Maybe not.
There was a time when cricketers had to work extremely hard for years to reach the pinnacle i.e. – the captain of the team. When Sourav Ganguly or MS Dhoni or even Virat Kohli was named captain, they held on their positions for years, defining an entire era altogether. But lately, over the last year or so, the captaincy has become a game of musical chairs. KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Shikhar Dhawan, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya and of course Rohit Sharma have all been handed captaincy – which makes one ponder: Is captaincy really that big a deal in Indian cricket anymore? Maybe not.
With Rohit already 35, he may no longer be India's designated captain across formats for too long. With Hardik showing the appetite and credentials to become a leader, and other names knocking on the door, the selectors seem to have shortlisted the candidate/candidates to usher Indian cricket into the next era. Amid this rat-race though, one name that former India cricketer Ajay Jadeja seems to be fond of is Shreyas Iyer, who is gradually cementing his place in the Indian team. Iyer has had a fabulous 2022, scoring a staggering 1609 runs across formats, 185 more than Suryakumar Yadav, the player to have burned up the charts this year. And given the fact what Iyer achieved in the recently-concluded nerve-wracking Mirpur Test against Bangladesh, Jadeja feels Iyer can be a name that the BCCI could look up to as the next Indian captain.
"It's not just once, but Shreyas Iyer has done it twice-thrice in fact. Once he came back from injury, then he was struggling against the short-pitch bowling and he has worked to overcome it. So when you learn to overcome one obstacle, you can put behind the others too. Let's hope see because 2-3 years ago, he was tipped as the next Indian captain. Now it's a different scenario altogether with as many as 12 captains in Indian cricket, but he was touted to become the next skipper," Jadeja said on the Sony Sports Network.
Iyer has left Dhawan and Shubman Gill behind to emerge as India's leading run-scorer in ODIs this year, amassing 724 runs from 17 matches. Besides, he has been in prolific form in Tests with 422 runs from five matches at an average of 60.28, second only to Rishabh Pant who has 680 runs from seven games. Iyer, who made his debut in whites against New Zealand last year and sizzled with a century on debut, may not have scored a hundred in this, but with four fifties, has shown huge improvement.
More importantly, Iyer's red-hot form has seen him present a strong case to be included in India's Playing XI across formats, and Jadeja is in awe of what he has seen of the 28-year-old during his patient knock against Bangladesh. With India struggling at 74/7 in chase of 145, Iyer and R Ashwin stitched an unbeaten 71-run partnership to take the team over the line for a 2-0 sweep – a stand during which Ash was the aggressor.
"He has scored runs consistently. He is averaging 60-70 this year in Test cricket and the temperament he showed on Day 4 was spectacular. If look at that partnership carefully, Ashwin faced more balls and scored more runs, so he realised that just because he was the last recognised specialist batter, he only has to get the job done. And then the calmness he showed... it's one thing to say 'I love pressure situations. I thrive there', but to do it is something else. For me, temperament has always held more significance than skills and ability because good temperament allows you to delivery and do justice to that skills," mentioned Jadeja.
