“Is Rishabh Pant not even a candidate for Test captaincy?” – Aakash Chopra on wicketkeeper not being made captain for Duleep Trophy

Former Indian Test opener Aakash Chopra questioned if Rishabh Pant is not even a candidate for Test captaincy. Pant has performed consistently in the red-ball format but he was not given the captaincy onus for the upcoming Duleep trophy.

The wicket-keeper batsman will play under the leadership of Abhimanyu Easwarana for India B in the domestic tournament. Meanwhile, recently Suryakumar Yadav was named as India’s T20I captain whereas Shubman Gill has been picked as the vice-captain of the limited-overs format.

“Rishabh Pant is not a captain. He has been selected in Abhimanyu Easwaran’s team. He is playing under Abhimanyu Easwaran’s captaincy, which is absolutely okay. However, is Rishabh Pant not even a candidate for Test captaincy? I am a little surprised,” Aakash Chopra said on his YouTube Channel.

Meanwhile, Shreyas Iyer, Ruturaj Gaikwad, and Shubman Gill have been named captains of the other three teams.

The renowned commentator shared his surprise that Pant was ignored for the leadership role despite performing consistently in the red-ball format.

“I am not aligned with this personally because the best avatar of Rishabh Pant you have seen is as a Test cricketer. He is the only wicketkeeper in the history of Indian cricket who has scored centuries in South Africa, England and Australia in Test matches,” Chopra observed.

Chopra said Pant should have been picked as a captain by the Ajit Agarkar-led selection panel.

“Who else has done that? No one has. The way he plays in Test cricket and scores runs consistently, personally, in my opinion, he was a captaincy candidate. However, Shubman Gill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shreyas Iyer and even Abhimanyu Easwaran are captains but Pant is not a captain, and that is a huge takeaway in my opinion,” he elaborated.

The former Delhi player added he would be curious to know newly appointed head coach Gautam Gambhir’s opinion on giving captaincy to Rishabh Pant.

“A new era has started. So I will be very curious to know what Gautam’s opinion is with regards to Rishabh Pant the captain. When the ODIs started (against Sri Lanka), he didn’t play the first two matches, KL Rahul was playing, but Pant came in the last match,” he explained in the same video.

The Duleep Trophy is set to get underway from September 5.