Former India star expresses candid opinion on three captains for South Africa tour

In response to the Board of Control for Cricket in India's decision to appoint three different captains for the upcoming South Africa tour, former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan shares candid insights.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has unveiled a strategy of appointing three distinct captains across formats for the upcoming South Africa tour. While Rohit Sharma retains the Test captaincy, Suryakumar Yadav and KL Rahul have been designated captains for T20Is and ODIs, respectively. Despite the rationale behind this decision being influenced by Hardik Pandya's unavailability due to injury, former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan expresses dissatisfaction with the move. Pathan suggests that while this might be a current necessity due to workload management, he is wary that it could become a trend in the future. In his candid remarks on Star Sports, Pathan hints at the potential normalisation of split captaincy and even different coaches for various formats, a shift he is not entirely in favour of within the context of Indian cricket culture.

"This could be a sign for the future, which I am not a big fan of. There has been talk for a long time about whether we can do split captaincy. It's true workload management has been done here and that is why you are seeing such big squads and different captains," Pathan said on Star Sports.

"It's clear that Rohit had to take a break from white-ball cricket, so you are not seeing him there. You are seeing him as the captain for Test cricket. However, you might see these things going forward. You might even see different coaches for different formats. I believe it's better if it doesn't happen in our culture."

India's squad for 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.

India's squad for 3 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.

India's squad for 3 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.