India men's cricket team's outgoing head coach Vikram Rathour has named Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal as the potential candidates who will fill in the shoes of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Rathour said that it will take time to replace Rohit and Kohli who retired from T20I cricket soon after T20 World Cup 2024 triumph in Barbados.
In the recently-concluded T20I series against Zimbabwe which India won 4-1, captain Gill was the leading run-scorer. On the other hand, Jaiswal who was a member of India’s T20 World Cup 2024 squad, joined the team for the last three T20Is. The left-handed batter turned out to be the second-highest run-scorer. He impressed everyone with an unbeaten 93 in the fourth T20I which helped India seal the series.
"It is never going to be easy to replace people of Rohit and Virat's calibre," Rathour told PTI. "The recently-concluded [T20I] series against Zimbabwe gave us some glimpse into how the T20 team will look like in future. But we still have a few years in Test and ODI cricket to get to that point.
"I won't be too concerned about it [the transition]. We have a lot of depth in Indian cricket. There are lots of very talented and skilful players who are coming through the system. The only thing we need to make sure is the transition is done in a controlled manner. It needs to be gradual.
"I am hoping that by then, players like Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, to name a few, would establish themselves and will make the transition smooth. In ODIs also, we have experienced players like Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya to take over.
"There are many exciting players coming through but these two [Gill and Jaiswal] are equipped to play all three formats for a long time. They are going to be the backbone of Indian batting in years to come."
The young Indian duo’s next assignment will on Sri Lankan soil. They will play three T20Is and ODIs each on the tour starting later this month.
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