KL Rahul was the stand-in captain in the recently concluded ODI series in South Africa.
Team India started their year with a 0-3 loss against South Africa in the ODI series and a 1-2 loss in the Test series. While the KL Rahul-led side wasn’t successful in producing indifferent performances in the first two ODIs of the series, the team came close to ending the tour on a winning note but fell short of 4 runs in the third ODI.
India’s performance throughout the series became a topic of discussion and a lot of questions were raised regarding the key players and management thereafter. KL Rahul’s captaincy was also scrutinized by Indian cricketer Manoj Tiwary.
Tiwary said that one cannot “groom” a captain and that leadership comes naturally to a player.
"First of all, I want to ask the selectors, "What did you see in Rahul as captaincy material?" Suddenly, they’re saying that they’re grooming him as a future captain. I don’t understand how you can "groom" a captain. A person is either a born leader or he isn’t," Tiwary told Sportskeeda.
“Captaincy comes naturally, it’s an inbuilt quality. Grooming a captain is possible, but the process will take a long time. It will take a player around 20 to 25 games to learn about decision-making, but even then, success will not be guaranteed. See, every international match is important for India.”
Tiwary further mentioned that he is not critical of Rahul as a captain but the selectors need to be open about the thought process behind naming him as the Indian captain.
"Considering the kind of players we had, we shouldn’t have lost the ODI series 0-3. A few wrong decisions cost us the series. I’m not blaming Rahul for his captaincy, but I’m disappointed with the selectors, who should identify leadership skills in a player rather than "grooming" a captain. That’s why I want to ask the selectors what they saw in Rahul to make him the captain of India," said Tiwary.
Manoj Tiwary further opined on who should be India's next Test captain and gave his vote to Rohit Sharma.
He said: "Rohit Sharma – there’s no question about that! Rohit is a born leader, so the selectors and the team management shouldn’t think about anyone else. Let’s not think too far ahead at this point in time. Let’s only focus on the present as Rohit still has a lot of cricket left in him. He has led Mumbai Indians successfully in the IPL, so just give him the captaincy. Irrespective of the format, he has been successful because of his decision making, temperament and strong communication skills."
(Sportskeeda inputs)