As the dust settles on India’s torrid time in Australia, where they surrendered the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to the home team for the first time since 2017, speculation is rife as to who the best man to lead Team India in Tests is ahead of the next two-year World Test Championship (WTC) cycle from June.
While India are not scheduled to play Test cricket for six months, the clamor for change after India won just one of five matches in Australia has reached a new level.
The man who captained India since the start of 2022, Rohit Sharma, was so awful on the tour that after averaging 6.20 runs per innings he apparently dropped himself – or so we are led to believe – for the final Test match in Sydney. This extended lean run of form for Rohit the batsman, as well as captain, has left most Indian cricket fans wondering if the 37-year-old has played his final Test match, contrary to what he said during an interview ahead of the second day’s play at the SCG.
Under Rohit’s leadership, India have failed to win their last six Tests, and this saw them fall out of the WTC final race. While it cannot entirely be ruled out that Rohit, who will turn 38 in April, will not travel to England with the Test team in June, chances are that the BCCI selectors will opt for a new captain for that tour of five matches, which starts a new WTC cycle.
The leading candidate, based on his outstanding form and age, is Jasprit Bumrah. The 31-year-old was named Player of the Series in Australia after taking 32 wickets at an excellent average of just 13 runs per wicket, and truly the Indian team looked a different side when stand-in captain Bumrah was unable to take the field on day three in Sydney. Bumrah led India to victory by 295 runs in the first Test of the BGT in Perth, where he was Player of the Match for taking eight wickets, and if the team was able to compete in the next four matches, it was largely due to his brilliance with the ball.
Bumrah has so far led India three times, each when Rohit was absent, and has lost two of those. But more than the results, it is Bumrah’s undeniable genius with the ball and the fact that he remains a first-choice player that has led many to speculation that he’s the best man to lead India in England and beyond.
However, what might go against Bumrah is his workload management, which means he that it would be untenable to assume that he plays every Test match in a calendar year. And, given how many overs he had to bowl in Australia, it is extreme to expect Bumrah to play all five Tests in England this summer. That puts emphasis on the BCCI selectors choosing a viable vice-captain, a facet of Indian cricket that has sorely been lacking over the years.
Virat Kohli’s name has also been used in hushed tones, given his stature in the team and the fact that he led India for nearly seven years. Kohli’s record as Test captain is 40 wins from 68 matches, which includes India’s first series win in Australia, and his batting when leading the team was also very impressive. In fact, 20 of Kohli’s 30 Test centuries came when he was captain.
However, Kohli the batsman has struggled for consistency since the start of 2020. In that time, he averages 30 in Tests with just three centuries, and more worrying is his apparent inability to stop playing shots outside the off stump. Since mid-2021, Kohli has been out to pace bowlers when playing outside off on 24 occasions, and all eight of his dismissals in Australia recently were part of this alarming streak.
If reports are to be believed, Kohli has expressed interest in leading India on a temporary basis until a permanent captain can be identified, but his current form does not augur well ahead of five Tests in seam-friendly conditions. And beyond his poor form, there is the fact that the last two years of Kohli’s Test captaincy were far from successful.
In early 2020, under Kohli, India were hammered 2-0 in New Zealand. Later that year, India lost the only Test match that he captained in Australia before leaving the tour (and we all know what happened after 36 all out).
Then in 2021, Kohli’s team was beaten by New Zealand in the first WTC final. Not long after, India were 2-1 up over hosts England – who at the time were a beleaguered Test team, it must be said – before they backed out of the fifth and final Test, a sore point which would come back to haunt them. When that fifth Test was eventually rescheduled in 2022, India were soundly beaten by Bazball England, and in between that split tour, Kohli oversaw a Test series defeat in South Africa.
So, as a batsman and captain, Kohli does not look like the best candidate for the job, even on a temporary basis.
Another name is Rishabh Pant, now in his seventh year of Test cricket. While he does not have red-ball leadership experience, Pant remains India’s number one wicketkeeper-batter and has success in overseas conditions. At 27, Pant also has age on his side and his time leading Delhi Capitals in the IPL may have been noted closely by the BCCI selectors. While he had a very poor tour of Australia by his previous high standards there, Pant looks certain to be picked across the next WTC cycle and is a popular figure in the dressing room. Maybe the selectors can start by naming Pant as vice-captain, for whatever good that title is.
While backing a youngster to lead India is rare in the corridors of Indian cricket, if one were to look at the under-25 crop of current Test players and then to the next decade, the name Yashasvi Jaiswal does come to mind. Aged 22 when he landed in Australia for his first tour of the country, Jaiswal finished the BGT as India’s leading run-getter with 391 at an average of 43 with a highest score of 161 and two innings in the eighties at the MCG.
His maturity and ability to cope with Australia’s new-ball bowlers was admirable and given that in an 18-month Test career the 23-year-old has amassed almost 1800 runs at an average of more than 52, it seems like Jaiswal is here to stay.
However, with no leadership experience at the domestic level, it is unlikely that the BCCI selectors will go the South African way and hand Jaiswal the captaincy at 23 like Graeme Smith was given the role ahead of a tour to England 22 years ago, even if that decision proved historical and made Smith his country’s most successful Test captain ever.
At one point of time, Shubman Gill was viewed as a potential Test captain. However, his terrible tour of Australia and extended failure in SENA countries seems to have extinguished any chances of that happening.
Gill averaged 18 in the BGT with a highest of 32 and his shot selection at one-down has won him no admirers. While successful at home, Gill’s batting average of 25 in SENA countries points to a batsman with a long way to go to cement his place in the Test team. Gill’s only two fifties in SENA countries came during his debut series in Australia four years ago, and if he keeps struggling to convert start from the number three spot, he might not retain his spot in the 11.
So then, is it Bumrah – workload management and willingness to rest with this in mind – who will walk out at Headingley on June 20 for the toss? Or does Indian cricket have another googly up its sleeve?
