Former Indian cricketer Robin Uthappa feels Hardik Pandya should not feel disappointed after he missed out his chance on becoming India’s new T20I captain. Pandya was one of the frontrunners to take over the captaincy of Rohit Sharma after he announced his retirement from the format. Though, the selection committee mad a bold decision as they promoted Suryakumar Yadav instead of Hardik Pandya as the new T20I skipper, and he also lost his vice-captaincy to Shubhman Gill. Chief selector Ajit Agarkar said that Pandya’s injury-taking nature in the recent times was the reason behind their decision to not give him this responsibility.
Uthappa put stress on the fact that BCCI made a good decision as Hardik who has recently had to deal with a lot of injuries, should understand that it would only help him for his long-lasting career.
“If I were in Hardik’s place, I would actually feel taken care of to a certain extent. If I’m 34-35 years old and I’m someone who’s been injury-prone through my career and a certain responsibility has been taken away from me with the mindset of extending my career and giving me the best chance to offer my services to my country for as long as possible, keeping that in view, I would actually say OK this is the best thing for me,” said Uthappa.
Robin Uthappa, who shares a good friendship with Hardik Pandya has said that he feels Pandya would be fine with not getting the T20I captaincy.
“If you asked me between the two what I would pick as a human being, I would say, serving my country and winning as many World Cup championships, irrespective of whether I was a captain or whether I was just a player. Knowing Hardik Pandya on a certain level, I would say he’d be someone saying it’s fine, their perspective is also right. They want a player of my quality and my caliber to be able to serve my country for as long as possible. And I would love to do that as well,” he said.
Surya’s tenure as India’s permanent T20I captain will start with Sri Lanka series, where Pandya will play under him. The first T20I of the 3-match series will begin on 27 July, followed by other two matches on July 28 and 30. On the other hand, Rohit Sharma will continue the captaincy with ODIs as India will then Travel to Colombo to play 3 ODIs which are to be held on August 2,4 and 7.
