Former Team India player Robin Uthappa backed the change of T20I captaincy from Suryakumar Yadav to Shreyas Iyer ahead of the upcoming Ireland series, starting June 26 as well. Surya recently led India to T20 World Cup glory and boasts an excellent T20I captaincy record as well. Under him, India won 40 of their 52 T20Is, with only 8 defeats. Yet, Surya’s own batting form has been largely poor over the past two years as well.

Talking about this, Uthappa said on the CommBox TV YouTube channel: “It is the right time. Though it’s unfortunate for Surya, given his incredible captaincy record, the bad batting form was for too long. And the IPL also didn’t augur any confidence in the selectors. Two years also gives Gambhir and Iyer time to work their chinks out and iron out any issues before the big events in two years. Hopefully, Indian cricket doesn’t go crazy and changes captains before that.”

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“It didn’t look like Surya was out of form but just out of runs. That’s the best time to actually take a break and come back after a month or few months. But two years is a good runway he got before being dropped. Unfortunately, age isn’t on his side as well,” he added again.

Robin Uthappa also believes the head coach-captain dynamic between new T20I captain Shreyas Iyer and Gautam Gambhir will succeed, due to their partnership at the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) as well. However, Iyer led KKR to one of the most dominant title runs in IPL 2024, with Gambhir as the Team Mentor as well.

“It will be a fascinating combination. But the dynamic works because they’ve worked together successfully with KKR,” concluded Uthappa.