Having led the national team in 13 ODIs during the fag end of his career, Ajay Jadeja, during a special appearance on Sports Tak, came down heavily on the current Indian cricket team for having multiple captains lately.
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Jadeja, who successfully mentored Afghanistan during the recently concluded ICC Cricket World Cup, doesn’t consider constantly changing captains as a fruitful exercise for the team environment.
Set to travel to South Africa for a multi-format tour, India will be captained by three players across as many formats. Split captaincy, however, doesn’t bother Jadeja. The 52-year old’s primary source of worry is as many as 10 players leading India across formats since the start of 2021.
It is to be noted that Jadeja’s well founded rant began with finding faults in how Rohit Sharma missed 12 out of the 30 ODIs which India played 12 months before the World Cup. Also throwing light on a gospel truth around how the selectors have distanced themselves from consistency, Jadeja, journalist Nikhil Naz and actor Varun Badola started counting India’s captains in the recent years.
“Abey toh team mein log kitne hote hai [How many players are present in the team?],” Jadeja quipped.
Since 11 players constitute of a cricket team, 10 of them namely Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan, Sharma, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Suryakumar Yadav leading India across formats in this period doesn’t sit well with Jadeja.
Readers must note that injuries, workload management, outdated approaches, mismanagement, COVID-19 etc. all contributed to these many players captaining the Indian cricket team. Kohli, India’s last all-format captain in true sense, relinquishing captaincy across formats also didn’t help the team.
Ajay Jadeja Censures ‘Rare Talent’ Hardik Pandya
In the same more than an hour-long video, Jadeja’s dissatisfaction wasn’t just limited to Sharma. He was equally unhappy with Pandya, who misses a lot of international matches despite receiving special treatment in the name of workload management. When host Naz referred to Pandya as a “rare talent”, Jadeja was quick to roast the 30-year old player by providing a practical definition of the term.
“Iska tu matlab nahin samjha, woh bahut rare talent hai, woh rare hi ground par dikhte hai [You didn’t understand what he meant. He is a rare talent who is rarely seen on the ground],” Jadeja mentioned.
Notwithstanding his all-round offerings, Pandya’s injury-prone body often lands India in a clueless territory. Currently on an 18-week high-performance program at the NCA (National Cricket Academy) as per News18, Pandya will also miss the tour of South Africa.
What is unacceptable on the part of the selection committee and team management is them not even trying to find a replacement for Pandya. Therefore, unnecessarily adding to his worthiness and making him seem as an irreplaceable entity.
