Former India wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik has expressed his surprise over the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)’s decision to strip Hardik Pandya as the vice-captain of the T20I team. This comes after the BCCI did not list Hardik as the designated vice-captain of the team for the upcoming five-match T20I series against England. Instead, all-rounder Axar Patel has been named as deputy to T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav. Karthik feels that the move to strip Hardik off the role makes no sense.
“I really don’t know. I don’t know why he (Hardik) was stripped of his vice-captaincy. I don’t see any reason to (strip Pandya of the vice-captaincy). (India) have done well. They have won in the bilaterals that he was the vice-captain. Not a clue,” said Karthik on Cricbuzz.
At one point, Hardik was leading the race to replace Rohit as captain of the T20I team. He even led the team on multiple occasions whenever Rohit was rested.
He won three out of four T20I series as captain, before Suryakumar’s elevation after the T20 World Cup success last year.
Meanwhile, India will play England in a five-match series, starting with the first game in Kolkata on January 22.
The second and third matches will be held on January 25 and 28 in Chennai and Rajkot, respectively. The fourth game of the series will be played on January 31 in Pune. Mumbai will host the final match of the T20I series on February 2.
Nearly 14 months after he last played an international match, veteran seamer Mohammed Shami will make his return to the side during the series.
India T20I squad: Suryakumar Yadav (C), Sanju Samson (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel (vc), Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammad Shami, Varun Chakravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel (wk).
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