Experienced Team India all-rounder Hardik Pandya made headlines with his performance in the last few months. From struggling to get back in form and become match fit to be the next candidate to become the next T20 captain of India – he has come a long way. However, he took a break after the T20 World Cup last year to work on his physical and mental health and returned with a bang.
He led the Gujarat Titans for the very time in the cash-rich Indian Premier League and won the trophy in their inaugural season only. Not only as the captain but he did exceptionally well as an all-rounder too. And, his recent performances helped him to be in the race for the next T20 captain of India as well.
While many backed the move, former Pakistan skipper Salman Butt has expressed his denial about this. Butt stated that although Pandya has talent and like Rohit Sharma, has also won the IPL, why he is being considered as the captain so soon, he has failed to understand.
📸 📸 Snapshots from #TeamIndia's traditional welcome at Mt. Maunganui
Image Courtesy: Jamie Troughton/Dscribe Media#NZvIND pic.twitter.com/K4yUiScPO7
— BCCI (@BCCI) November 19, 2022
“Will you change the captains of all 11 teams because they lost the World Cup?” – Salman Butt
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Butt said, “Pata nahi kinna nu nazar aanda hai, pata nahi kaun khwaab dekhta rehta hai. Talent hai, IPL mein [captaincy] kar rahe hain, wahaan successful hue hain. IPL mein Rohit Sharma bhi 5-6 dafa successful huye hain. I think, it about yahi usne agar 2 match acchi batting ki hoti toh kisi ne yeh baat nahi karni thi. (I don’t know who is seeing him as captain and who is watching such dreams. He has talent and has tasted success in the IPL. But even Rohit Sharma has been successful five to six times in the IPL. If he had scored well in a couple of matches [in the T20 World Cup 2022], people wouldn’t have been talking about making this change at the top.)”
“Subcontinent mein na yahaan par, badi drastic aur badi jaldi iss tarah ka bada change hota hai na, log uski baatein karna shuru kar dete hain. (In the Asian subcontinent, people start talking about such drastic and big changes rather soon. Not all of them, but quite a few, who probably don’t understand how these things work. Sometimes, just for the sake of giving an opinion, people say, ‘change the captain’.) Only one captain has won the World Cup, the rest of the teams have lost. Will you change the captains of all 11 teams because they lost the World Cup?”, Butt further said.
Notably, Hardik Pandya has been named captain of Team India in the T20I series against New Zealand where the first match has already been washed out. The second game will be played on Sunday.
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