The Asia Cup 2025 is almost here, but the talk around India’s squad has gone in a different direction.
Shreyas Iyer, who had a brilliant season in IPL 2025, was left out when selectors named the team.
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Many fans thought his leadership in IPL was good enough to give him a chance to captain India in international cricket. But not everyone agrees with this.
Rajasthan Royals pacer Sandeep Sharma has now given his view, and he feels that IPL performance should not be the reason for making someone the captain of India.
Why was Shreyas Iyer’s IPL season in the spotlight?
Shreyas Iyer played one of his best IPL seasons this year. He not only scored runs but also showed his skills as a leader. He took Punjab Kings all the way to the final, something the team had not done for 11 years.
With the bat, he finished with more than 600 runs in the tournament, keeping a strong average and strike rate.
Because of this, many people started saying he should get a chance in India’s Asia Cup team and maybe even as captain.
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What did Sandeep Sharma say about captaincy criteria?
In a chat with CricTracker, Sandeep Sharma clearly said that IPL success is not the rule to become India’s captain.
He gave examples, saying that Suryakumar Yadav is India’s current T20 captain, but he is not leading any IPL side.
"See, this debate that he as a captain took his team to the finals is senseless. Surya is not doing the captaincy of any franchise. So that is not the criteria to be the captain of the Indian side. And for the last three years, Rohit was not doing the captaincy of any franchise. But still, he was the captain of T20 Indian team and one day side is still the same captain. And he was the captain of all three formats of Tests," said Sandeep.
Even Rohit Sharma was not captain of his IPL franchise for some years, but still he was India’s skipper across formats. According to Sandeep, the job of leading India is very different compared to leading an IPL franchise.
He explained that in IPL, there are young domestic players, some overseas names, and the challenge is different.
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But when it comes to India, the selectors are looking at a squad of 15 top players, and the captain has to manage them at the highest level.
For that reason, what happens in IPL cannot be taken as the main test for India captaincy.
He called the debate “senseless” and said people need to understand the difference between domestic league and international cricket.
As the Asia Cup 2025 approaches, India’s team will move forward with Suryakumar Yadav as captain and Shubman Gill as his deputy, leaving the Shreyas debate aside for now