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Team India head coach Gautam Gambhir has been a long-time admirer of Suryakumar Yadav. The same was apparent during their days together at the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). Gambhir surprised everyone when he named Suryakumar as the vice-captain of KKR ahead of the 2015 season.
Nine years on, several reports have claimed that Suryakumar and Hardik Pandya are the two main options to be Rohit Sharma's heir in T20Is. A report from the Indian Express claims that there are concerns about Hardik's fitness and thus Suryakumar could be the potential captaincy candidate.
Here's what Gautam Gambhir had said about Suryakumar Yadav way back in 2015 after their first match against the Mumbai Indians:
"We always thought of him as a leader off the field and we wanted to groom him. That's the difference between KKR and other franchises. We wanted him to get matured as quickly as possible, get smarter, and control his emotions as well. Hopefully, he'll become a much better individual and player and have a great future ahead."
Both SKY and Gambhir didn't play for Kolkata after IPL 2017 as the former moved to the Mumbai Indians while the latter went to the Delhi Daredevils.
Gautam Gambhir on his only regret regarding Suryakumar Yadav
Suryakumar Yadav's move to the Mumbai Indians (MI) proved to be substantial in his career as he has gone on to become one of the best T20 batters in the world. Used predominantly as a pinch-hitter at KKR, Suryakumar showed at MI that he could become a world-class top-order batter.
Speaking exclusively to Sportskeeda, Gautam Gambhir had opened up on his one regret as captain. He said:
"A leader's role is to identify the best potential and show it to the world. If there is one regret that I have in my seven years of captaincy, is that me and we as a team never managed to use Suryakumar Yadav to the best of potential. The reason was down to combinations."
Only time will tell whether India will name Suryakumar as their new T20I captain despite Hardik Pandya being Rohit Sharma's deputy at the T20 World Cup. The squad for the T20Is and ODIs against Sri Lanka are reportedly set to be announced on Thursday.
