By Sakshi Verma
The latest Test defeat for India at Edgbaston at the hands of England has highlighted one of the major drawbacks for the side. Ever since former skipper Virat Kohli gave up captaincy in all formats of the game, India has been struggling with a single captain in every series.
Though Rohit Sharma has been appointed the new Indian captain in all three formats, health concerns have left the Mumbai Indians skipper unable to lead the Indian side in all tours. In fact, Sharma had the worst Indian Premier League season after he took over Kohli.
The lack of leadership in the Indian team is also exposing this huge chink in India’s armor for other teams to take advantage of. The BCCI now has some serious thinking to do. Either they should bite the Aussie bug of split captaincy or Rohit Sharma will have to be more cautious about his health, just like Virat Kohli.
Leading the Indian cricket team in all formats is no cake walk. Maybe Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri made it look easy over the past five-seven years. But now it’s high time Rohit Sharma built the same rapport with new Head coach Rahul Dravid. The two will have to come up with better strategy, team combinations and Plan Bs keeping the upcoming T20 World Cup in mind.
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Dravid, however, was troll-bait as soon as the series was declared a draw at Birmingham’s Edgbaston for Indian cricket-lovers. Their frustration over losing the decider can be understood since India lost a match it could have won, but for the bowlers, and drew a Test series that was almost in the bag. But what people are unable to comprehend is that the biggest support of a Head coach is his skipper.
Ever since Dravid has taken over as coach, India has had six different captains in eight months. First, it was Virat Kohli for the India vs South Africa Test series, later it was KL Rahul for the ODI series against South Africa, followed by Rohit Sharma in the India tour of Sri Lanka and West Indies tour of India. Then, Rishabh Pant led the Indian side against South Africa for the T20 series and Hardik Pandya led the men in blue against Ireland for two match T-20 series.
And finally Jasprit Bumrah led Team India against England for the fifth Test match. With such rapid changes in leadership, how can people expect positive results from coach Rahul Dravid? Also ever since ‘The Wall’ has been head coach, a majority of Indian players have been rested or injured.
With just half the manpower and a changing leader, India will never be able to win a series. The ball is now with the BCCI to address the issue. The team management will have to focus on the right team combinations and hone with their attacking strategy rather than being walled up.
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