Former Pakistani leg spinner Danish Kaneria thinks that the Indian team is not united on the South Africa tour under KL Rahul and the former captain Virat Kohli, who resigned from test captaincy in the middle of the tour, looks “disinterested” on the field.
Kaneria is not overly impressed with the leadership abilities of Rahul and he is of the view that the team is not showing the same kind of intensity on the ground under Rahul as it used to show previously, but he has also stressed that Virat Kohli is not talking to Rahul as much on the ground as he should and not offering his inputs.
According to Kaneria, whenever the Indian team has opted for DRS or any crucial decision, Kohli hasn’t been seen anywhere close to the captain and he has stayed disconnected with the entire unit. It clearly shows the Indian camp is not united, and it’s very important for Rohit Sharma to come back and take charge from Rahul.
Danish Kaneria regularly expresses his views about Indian cricket on his YouTube channel and he has said a lot of strange things in the past as well, but his recent comments about the disconnection between KL Rahul and Virat Kohli have raised a few eyebrows.
KL Rahul is one of the contenders for India’s full-time test captaincy
KL Rahul is not India’s permanent captain in any form of the game yet. There are talks of him being one of the contenders to take over the test captaincy ahead of the test series against Sri Lanka, but he is standing in as an ODI captain currently in South Africa only because Rohit Sharma is injured and not available.
When Virat Kohli had resigned as the T20I captain of India, the selectors initially gave the charge of the T20 team to Rohit, but subsequently, they sacked Kohli from ODI captaincy as well, to name Rohit the complete white-ball captain of India later.
However, as far as the test captaincy is concerned, Rohit’s name is not unanimous because of his fitness issues and the grueling demands of test cricket. Also, the Indian selectors might think long term with regard to test captaincy and Rohit, being 35 years of age already, might not be the best option going ahead in the future.
Rishabh Pant is also in with a chance for test captaincy, but his inexperience might go against him, as the selectors wouldn’t want to burden a young player with the leadership role in the transition phase.
