Duleep Trophy: Rishabh Pant not being considered as captain shocks Aakash Chopra - 'That's a huge takeaway'

Add as a preferred source on Google

Duleep Trophy: Aakas Chopra expressed shock after Rishabh Pant was not considered for the captaincy role for the first-round matches of the upcoming Duleep Trophy 2024. The wicketkeeper-batter has been picked in Team B which will be led by Bengal opener Abhimanyu Easwaran.

Shubman Gill has been named the captain of Team A, While Ruturaj Gaikwad will be leading the Team C. Mumbai batter Shreyas Iyer has been given the command of Team D.

Abhimanyu Easwaran is the only uncapped player who will lead a team in the Duleep Trophy 2024. The 27-year-old, who has played 94 first-class matches, will lead a team consisting of players like Pant, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar and Mohammed Siraj.

The same has shocked Aakash Chopra, who has reckoned that Rishabh Pant was not even being considered for the Test captaincy, and Shubman Gill was being promoted as the next face of the Indian cricket team.

"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.

"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.

"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.

"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," he added.

Aakash Chopra also talked about KL Rahul, who has been named in Shubman Gill's Team A. He opined that presence of Dhruv Jurel in Team A means KL Rahul was no longer being considered for wicketkeeper-batter role in Test cricket.

"Even for KL Rahul, the team he has been kept has Dhruv Jurel as the keeper and Shubman Gill is the captain of that side. So things have started becoming slightly clear that Indian cricket has started moving towards Shubman Gill. When KL Rahul has been picked in Dhruv Jurel's team, it means Dhruv Jurel will keep, so KL Rahul is no longer your Test keeper, which is also okay," Aakash Chopra stated.