Rohit Sharma will retain the T20 captaincy for next year’s ICC Twenty20 World Cup if he decides to continue playing the shortest format of the game.
Hardik Pandya, who has been leading the side since the 2022 T20 World Cup, is no longer an automatic choice for captaincy if Rohit decides to play the shortest format.
“Rohit has been offered T20 captaincy but he is in UK on a holiday and wants an extended break after four months of gruelling season till end of the World Cup. But as captain, he has the highest respect for the dressing room and if he agrees to lead India in T20 World Cup, he will lead,” a BCCI source told PTI.
Rohit, 36, and star batsman Virat Kohli are not part of India’s limited overs teams for the South Africa series in December.
But the two veteran players will be back in the team for the two-Test series in South Africa.
Suryakumar Yadav, who is captaining the Indian team in the ongoing five-match T20I series against Australia, will continue in the role in the shortest format during the three-match series against South Africa beginning on December 10 in Durban, while KL Rahul will be the skipper for the three-match ODI series against the Proteas.
The BCCI selection committee, which met here on Thursday, also decided to make pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah as Rohit’s deputy in the two-Test series beginning on December 26 in Centurion.
Rahul will keep wickets in the Test series.
Squads for South Africa series:
Tests: Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan (wk), KL Rahul (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohd. Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Mohd. Shami*, Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Prasidh Krishna.
T20Is: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav (C), Rinku Singh, Shreyas Iyer, Ishan Kishan (wk), Jitesh Sharma (wk), Ravindra Jadeja (VC), Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Mohd. Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Deepak Chahar.
ODIs: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Sai Sudharsan, Tilak Varma, Rajat Patidar, Rinku Singh, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (C)(wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mukesh Kumar, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Deepak Chahar.