Former India player turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has said that it could be premature to evaluate Shreyas Iyer as India’s T20I captain in only five games. He added that the T20 World Cup 2028 was kept in mind while handing over the leadership role to Iyer as well. Nevertheless, India have lost 4 of the five games under Shreyas’ captaincy, with one match ending as a no-result because of rain.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “It shouldn’t be judged so quickly because things have modified. Suryakumar Yadav was the captain earlier, and now you have got made Shreyas Iyer the captain. There is no such thing as a Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, or Nitish Kumar Reddy. Not that Reddy was playing the World Cup, but there have been changes. Even Varun Chakaravarthy wasn’t available in a single series. So if you take a look at it from that perspective, you are feeling it’s too early to evaluate, and why should or not it’s judged so early, as your path could be very long. You might be fascinated about the World Cup. That’s in 2028.”
“So to make any change today in haste because we feel we’d like to vary, it won’t be the precise thing to do. If we start judging Shreyas Iyer’s captaincy based on the undeniable fact that the beginning hasn’t been good, then we are going to never construct a team,” he added.
Nevertheless, Aakash Chopra also stated that he wanted Suryakumar Yadav to proceed as India’s T20I skipper for the series against Ireland and England as well.
“Personally, I felt Suryakumar Yadav must have been allowed to captain in a single or two more series – that Ireland series and this England series. Then we could have said that we would like to maneuver away. It will have been right had that off-ramp been given. If you have got not done that and given Shreyas Iyer a probability, stick with him for a while. It’s not a superb thing if we start running here and there very early. I’m not going to evaluate Shreyas’ captaincy based on the performance in a single or two series,” Chopra concluded.
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