New Delhi, March 25: Shreyas Iyer is set to miss the remaining two ODIs and a large chunk of IPL 2021 after suffering a shoulder injury during the first one-dayer against England at Pune on Tuesday. It come as a massive blow to Delhi Capitals, who under Shreyas made good progress in the last couple of seasons.
The Capitals have reached the play-off stage in IPL 2019 and the final in the IPL 2020 under Shreyas. The Capitals had named Shreyas as their leader for IPL 2021 as well but his injury has jolted all those plans. Now, the Delhi outfit will need to find a new leader for IPL 14.
In that context, it has emerged that wicketkeeper batsman Rishabh Pant is the frontrunner to get the captaincy role of the Capitals. "We have always backed young players to come forward and take bigger role, and here too our policy will not change if it comes to that as we will be considering all sides before arriving at a call," said a source in the Delhi Capitals.
However, the final decision on the matter will be taken by this weekend and will involve promoters Parth Jindal, Kiran Gandhi and head coach Ricky Ponting. The other options the Captials have for captaincy role is Steve Smith, who led Rajasthan Royals last season, R Ashwin, who has the experience of leading Punjab Kings, Ajinkya Rahane, who had led Rajasthan Royals and senior batsman Shikhar Dhawan.
Jindal had tweeted in support of Shreyas. "Absolutely devastated and gutted for our skipper @ShreyasIyer15 - stay strong captain - hope for a very quick recovery. Have full faith that you will come back even stronger from this. India needs you in the T20 World Cup. @DelhiCapitals @BCCI," said Jindal in his tweet.
Shreyas is also staring at a possible surgery that may elongate his period of recovery from shoulder injury.