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Former Indian all-rounder Irfan Pathan, who is now a valued cricket expert, never shies away from being forthright about his opinions. His latest list of suggestions has been prompted by India’s embarrassing exit from the T20 World Cup in the semifinal stage against England. The 38-year-old mentioned a number of changes that should be made to the Indian T20I setup but pointed out that only changing captains will not be enough to bring about changed results as he recited that the Indian team needs more than a change of captain.
Irfan took to Twitter and shared a list of changes he believes will do the Indian team a good turn in the long run.
“Indian cricket going forward. 1) Openers playing freely, at least one of them. 2) Wrist spinner (wicket taker ) is must. 3) Tear away fast bowler. 4) Please don’t think changing captaincy will give us changed result. It’s the approach what needs to change,” Pathan posted on his Twitter account.
Speaking with Star Sports earlier, he expressed the need to have more than one leader in the team and the need to mould another player into a captain, effectively a team with two captains. Pathan stated that since Hardik Pandya is a fast-bowling all-rounder who is prone to injuries, the Indian team must have an acting captain ready to serve in Pandya’s absence.
“I’m not saying that if you change the captain you change the result, if you go like that you’re not going to change the result. And with Hardik Pandya, you need to understand, we all need to understand, that he’s a fast bowling all-rounder. He has injury issues as well. What if he is your captain who is getting injured right before the World cup? And if you don’t have any other leader ready, you’ll be in a mess,” said Pathan.
Pathan then further reiterated the need to have more than one captain and just like a team has a pair of openers, the Indian team must have a readymade captain to tap into. “So, what I personally think is that Hardik Pandya is a leader, who has done very well in the Gujarat Titans (GT), won Indian Premier League (IPL), won the championship trophy. You need to find not one, but two leaders going forward to build their mark.
You know just like we talk about openers - we need to have a group of openers, we also need to have a group of leaders,” Pathan added.
