India T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav succeeded Rohit Sharma's for the role in 2024 after Rohit Sharma announced his retirement from the shortest format. The latter called time on his T20I career following the Men in Blue's T20 World Cup triumph last year. Though many felt that the role can be quite pressurizing for Suryakumar, the results that the team has produced under his leadership have been nothing short of exceptional.
India are yet to lose a T20I assignment since Suryakumar took over as captain last year and have won all of their previous four series. The side have even turned outy to be quite dominant under the 34-year-old and have delivered in both the batting and bowling fronts. Now, Suryakumar is set to lead the team in Asia Cup 2025, a tournament that they are the favourites to win.
Suryakumar to lose captaincy to Gill?
However, even though the team has been brilliant under his leadership, former England cricketer Monty Panesar believes that Suryakumar can very well go on to lose his captaincy if they do not end up winning the continental tournament. He also feels that the selectors will hand the captaincy to Shubman Gill and added that the 25-year-old is likely to lead India in all the three formats in the coming future.
“Shubman Gill has great potential to captain India in all three formats. If Suryakumar Yadav doesn’t perform well in T20s or fails to win the Asia Cup, I think the selectors may move on from him and hand the white-ball captaincy to Gill. Once Rohit Sharma steps aside, it’s very likely that Gill will lead across formats,” Panesar told India TV.
Meanwhile, India will be beginning their Asia Cup campaign on September 10 with the clash against UAE. They will then be facing-off against arch-rivals Pakistan on September 14 before concluding their group stage with the match against Oman on September 19. The Men in Blue will be in the hunt to win a record ninth Asia Cup title in their history.
India squad for Asia Cup: Suryakumar Yadav (C), Shubman Gill (VC), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Sanju Samson, Harshit Rana, Rinku Singh.