The debate over whether India should employ split captaincy across formats has continued for the past few years. Virat Kohli has been a successful captain for India across all formats, but he has not been able to win an ICC trophy so far as captain.
Kohli has also been unable to win an IPL trophy as captain for Royal Challengers Bangalore, while his India deputy Rohit Sharma has won the trophy five times as Mumbai Indians captain.
In Kohli's absence, India won the Test series in Australia this year with Ajinkya Rahane's leadership. After the historic win, the split captaincy debate re-emerged, but with Kohli's India beating England across all formats, the debate has drowned once more.
Former India cricket and former selector Sarandeep Singh stressed that there is no need for India to employ split captaincy as Kohli has been performing across all formats.
“Spilt captaincy is needed when your captain is not performing but he (Kohli) is the only player to average more than 50 in all formats. If he isn’t performing in one format you can take the leadership pressure off him and give it to someone else," Sarandeep told news agency PTI.
{{/usCountry}}“Spilt captaincy is needed when your captain is not performing but he (Kohli) is the only player to average more than 50 in all formats. If he isn’t performing in one format you can take the leadership pressure off him and give it to someone else," Sarandeep told news agency PTI.
{{/usCountry}}Kohli was the leading-run getter in the T20Is against England and was also named the man of the match series for his batting performance. He followed it up with two fifties in the ODIs as well.
"Just because he has not won an IPL you can’t remove him from India captaincy. He is also the fittest player and captain. Rohit is there to lead the side in his absence but there is no reason to replace Virat,” Sarandeep Singh added.
Meanwhile, Kohli will lead RCB in IPL 2021 as the franchise look to win their maiden IPL trophy this year.