Punjab Kings' (PBKS) Mayank Agarwal and Chennai Super Kings' (CSK) Ravindra Jadeja were two of the standout performers in the IPL until this season. The Indian stars had a really poor outing in the ongoing IPL 2022, as the duo failed to make an impact both as players and captains for their respective teams.
Prior to the start of the IPL 2022, Jadeja and Agarwal were appointed captains of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Punjab Kings (PBKS) respectively. Well, they couldn’t handle the responsibility well and their performance just went down under pressure.
While Agarwal failed to take PBKS to the IPL 2022 playoffs and only managed 196 runs in 13 matches; Jadeja stepped down as captain after 8 matches, out of which CSK won only 2 and was later ruled out of this season with a rib injury. MS Dhoni took over the captaincy and CSK managed to win 2 more matches.
Ravi Shastri reacted strongly to the idea of putting excessive pressure on the Indian stars.
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Ravi Shastri told ESPNcricinfo: “Mayank Agarwal is in the same boat as Ravindra Jadeja. Guys who have never captained sides, you ask them to captain franchises. This is no disrespect to Mayank. Because I love the kid. I know how he plays his cricket, how determined he is.”
He further explained, “But it's putting a guy who is very good at what he does in the wrong place. And it can have problems. Serious problems, serious repercussions. It could have cost him his place in the Indian side. Test side, everything, because the selectors will judge on current form, they will judge on what they actually see. You saw Jadeja turning out to be a different cricketer. Mayank Agarwal turned out to be a different cricketer. We know how good they are as individual cricketers.”
The former coach signed off by saying, “In future, this is a strong message to the franchise to be very smart about who you pick as captain. It's Punjab's headache. Punjab should. I mean to get the best out of Agarwal. Fabulous player. But if you put that kind of pressure on him, then you can see. I don't want to go into details but you can see that it is affecting him.”
