If there is one thing that Indian Premier League has always bountiful of, that is young cricketers brimming with flair in the tournament. From introducing them to this gruesome world to grooming them to face it, the domestic Indian extravaganza has not just braced the next generation of Indian cricket for impact but it has also provided them with the flair to outmatch it.
It isn’t just good batsmen or bowers that Indian Premier League has presented us with but it has also given us successful leaders of the offing who are all set to take over the baton of excellence from their predecessors and lead the country in the face of any quagmire, if deemed necessary. We will look at five youngsters from India who can be brilliant captaincy material.
1. Shreyas Iyer :
One of the first names that strike you when we think of young captains has to be Shreyas. In his maiden stint as the captain of Delhi Daredevils he took his team to the semifinals and gave us glimpses of his capability as a leader.
When Gambhir gave up the captaincy midway due to the not-so-impressive performance of the team, there must have been something that the great Pointing saw in this wunderkind that made him hand over the leadership of such a hefty squad to Shreyas.
Despite the fact that he is still to face the amount of grilling which the others have encountered at number four, the handful number of innings played out by the Delhi skipper had class etched onto it right until from the very beginning to the end.
With Ponting to groom and the presence of seniors like Rahane, Shikhar and Ishant, he may easily hold the key to a rising one can only dream of.
2. Ben stokes:
England’s red-ball vice-captain has to be in everyone’s mind when we think of players who can be inspired as a leader.
Ben stokes as a player has been through his share of highs and lows in his international career. From being hit for 4 sixes in the 20th over of T20 World Cup to being the main architect of England’s world cup win, his knocks have been a burning testimony to his remarkable surge in international cricket.
Stokes lit the world cup in the opening match itself when he took a blinder of Rashid’s bowling and then followed it by the brilliant 84 in the world cup final. Who can forget the Headingley test where he single-handedly made sure that England won the game which seemed a goner at one stage.
He is a type of a player who thrives under pressure and does everything a captain asks him to do, a perfect team man and who better to lead the side than a guy who is already an inspiration for the team members and can lead from the front in all three aspects of the game.
3. Liton Das:
With Mashrafe Mortaza stepping down as the captain of the team, Bangladesh is already in need of a player who can take the responsibility from one of the most inspirational captains the team ever had.
From being a side known for creating upsets, Bangladesh cricket has come a long way. It is no more a drama when Bangladesh wins and without detracting anything from the fellow cricketers, the captain of the nation deserves a great deal of credit in spearheading this bunch.
Now the next big step should be focusing on how to win away from home and who better to lead them for that than Liton. He is an aggressive batsman and likes to take on the challenge. With the other seniors like Shakib, Mahmudullah and Mushfiqur to guide him he could lead them to become one of the best in the world.
4. Shai Hope:
One of the top-ranked ODI cricketers in the world, Hope surely seems to be one of the players to watch out for when we think of players with captaincy material in the Caribbean ranks.
If we look closely at Hope the batsman, we can notice calmness. In the team full of power hitters like Hetmyer, Pooran, Russell he is the glue that holds the team together.
Hope may not be the player who has the highest strike rate or the one who can scare the other team by his presence in the crease but his anchoring ability in the middle and then the welcoming of his intimidating incarnation with time makes an absolute knock-out in the Caribbean ranks.
He is young and has already been in the the international scene for a quite some time now and could very well be en route in lifting an otherwise lacklustre West Indies to their erstwhile glorious heights.
5. Tom Latham:
Latham is one of those guys who go around with his business without making much fuss about it. He is arguably the best test match wicketkeeper going around in world cricket at the moment.
As a test match batsman, he likes to play the big knocks when the team is under pressure. Batting lower down the order he is the one who hangs in there in case of a batting collapse.
This ability of him of not giving up and fighting till the very end makes him one of the biggest contenders of captaincy in case Williamson needs rest. After all, he leads the team in all three formats and may want to leave in either formats and Latham may very well be the biggest contender to set things in course if the calling comes up.
