Gautam Gambhir snatched captaincy from Hardik Pandya, gave orders along with Ajit Agarkar

Hardik Pandya was the vice-captain of Team India during the T20 World Cup, while he had taken over the captaincy of Team India last year before Rohit Sharma's return. However, when he was injured, Suryakumar Yadav took over the command in the T20 series against Australia and South Africa.

Hardik Pandya was the vice-captain of Team India in the T20 World Cup.Image Credit: PTI

Star all-rounder Hardik Pandya, who played a key role in making Team India the world champion after 13 years, has received a huge shock. He has received this shock from Team India's new coach Gautam Gambhir, who is starting his journey with Team India with the Sri Lanka tour. Gambhir is starting his journey with a shocking decision and that is the captaincy of the T20 team. Team India's new coach has decided to appoint a new captain along with his entry and it will not be Hardik Pandya. A report has stated that star batsman Suryakumar Yadav can be the new T20 captain of Team India and he will handle this responsibility not only for the Sri Lanka series but for a long time.

After Team India won the T20 World Cup, captain Rohit Sharma announced his retirement from this format. In such a situation, all eyes were on who would be the next T20 captain. This command was handed over to Shubman Gill on the Zimbabwe tour but the senior players of the world champion team were not present in this series. Now senior players like Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant are going to return from the Sri Lanka tour starting July 27 and in such a situation it was believed that Hardik would take charge of the T20 team because he was not only the vice-captain of the team during the World Cup, but he also captained the team in this format a year before that.

Gambhir-Agarkar issued an order to Hardik

Now it seems that this is not going to happen and the captaincy is going to slip from Hardik's hands again. The PTI report claims that coach Gambhir wants to take a decision not just for this series but with a long-term plan and hence wants to appoint the captain on this basis. The report states that in view of the 2026 T20 World Cup, it has been decided to appoint a permanent captain and Suryakumar Yadav's name is likely to be agreed upon for this.

Not only this, Gambhir has also talked to Chief Selector Ajit Agarkar in this matter and both of them together talked to Hardik Pandya on the evening of Tuesday, July 16 and told him about their decision and plan that a long term plan has been prepared to maintain stability in the leadership of the team and he will not be able to be the captain in it.

Surya takes lead in the race

The report also quoted sources from BCCI that the questions being raised about Hardik Pandya's fitness are completely baseless and he is going to return for the T20 series after becoming fully fit. Sources also said that Hardik was expected to become the captain but now it seems that Suryakumar Yadav has moved ahead in this race. Suryakumar Yadav captained the team in a total of 7 matches against South Africa and Australia, in which there were 5 wins and 2 losses.