Chetan Sharma, the chairman of India’s selection committee, has made it very clear that Rohit Sharma is the no. 1 cricketer of India at the moment and as long as he is fit and available, he will continue leading India.
When Virat Kohli had left the T20I captaincy and was later removed as the ODI captain of India, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Rohit would be the new limited over captain, but with Chetan Sharma insisting now that Rohit is the no. 1 player of the country and is an obvious choice for leadership, it seems the right-handed opener will now lead India across all formats for foreseeable future.
The other contenders who were in line for test captaincy, apart from Rohit, were KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant. While Rahul is not available for the test series against Sri Lanka and his leadership status in the test match set-up is unknown at the moment, Pant has not been named the deputy to Rohit for the test matches as of now.
Jasprit Bumrah has been named the vice-captain for the Sri Lanka test series even though Pant is in the team. It remains to be seen if Bumrah continues to be the vice-captain when KL Rahul returns to the test match set-up or if there is going to be a change in the leadership structure again.
Future leaders will be groomed under Rohit Sharma: Chetan Sharma
While naming Rohit Sharma the captain for the Test series against Sri Lanka, Chetan Sharma insisted that some future leaders would be groomed under Rohit, but in the meantime, he himself will be the leader of the side.
In the ongoing T20I series against West Indies where KL Rahul and Jasprit Bumrah, both were unavailable, Rishabh Pant was named the vice-captain of the Indian team for the first time since the start of his international career 5 years ago, which suggests that he is also in the leadership plans of the selectors.
