Scott Styris weighs in on Suryakumar Yadav's role as India’s T20I captain

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has appointed Suryakumar Yadav as the captain of India’s T20I team for their series against Sri Lanka. This comes as Gautam Gambhir begins his tenure as the new head coach of the Indian team.

Despite this development, former New Zealand cricketer Scott Styris believes that Yadav is a temporary choice for captaincy. According to Styris, Gambhir may be using this time to assess potential long-term leaders, with Shubman Gill emerging as a likely candidate for the future.

Gill, who has been named vice-captain for both the T20I and ODI series against Sri Lanka, is seen as a promising future captain. Styris suggested that while Yadav might lead the team in the short term, Gill could be the captain India looks to for the long haul.

"I think he's a short-term option. I don't think Gambhir has a natural captain among the players that he has right now. He's buying himself time as to who will be the next long-term captain, you know, someone like Gill I think could do the job for 10 years for India, but he's not quite ready right now, so I think it was a really smart decision to bring in someone with a bit more experience," Styris said.

Although Yadav is 33 years old and Rohit Sharma, the current Test and ODI captain, is 37, the BCCI and Gambhir are likely planning for future leadership. Styris speculated that if Yadav performs well, he could still be leading India in the 2026 T20 World Cup, but a new captain might be considered after that.

"If he (SKY) does a decent enough job, then he might be the captain at the next T20 World Cup. And then after that, you can look at Gill or any of the other potential options around. But yeah, I think it's a really clever decision," he concluded.