Ravi Shastri, the former coach of India has backed Indian T20I Captain Suryakumar Yadav, who is going to lead the Indian squad on their coming tour of Sri Lanka commencing this Saturday. This series also marks Suryakumar’s assumption of captaincy after a successful ICC T20 World Cup outing by Rohit Sharma in the shortest format.
Suryakumar says he believes in Surya’s potential to excel as an Indian captain for T20I. To be successful in his new role, Suryakumar must understand and manage quickly India’s varied bowling options.
“I think one thing that he will have to learn from his side is what are the strengths of his bowlers and what are their limitations,” Shastri told ICC. “I never say a bowler has a weakness; I say a limitation, and then there are strengths. And then focus on the right things and set fields accordingly. I think that is what he will have to learn,” added Ravi Shastri.
Suryakumar Yadav already captained team India in T20I against Australia at home & South Africa away in Rohit’s absence after last year’s World Cup ODI competition held by the ICC. Besides this, he also led Mumbai domestically on several occasions.
The ex-coach of the Indian cricket team expressed optimism about Yadav’s skillset and said that his way of batting would influence how he leads.
“We know he is street smart…he is probably one of the best T20 players going around in world cricket at this stage.” said Ravi Shastri.” He walks into any team day in day out as an individual match winner himself so I don’t see why it can be bad idea either.”
“I think it will [captaincy style] be much like his personality, the way he plays game,” commented Shastri when asked about suryakumar’s captaincy style. “He will be thinking very quickly and the fact that he knows all these players, even the senior players, I think he will be in a great position to handle the team.”
