3 reasons why Ravindra Jadeja's selection as vice-captain for South Africa T20Is is the wrong move

As with every selection announcement in Indian cricket, the big reveal of four teams for the tour of South Africa came with its share of surprises, some happy and some confusing, and a few highly debatable calls.

Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were rested from the white-ball leg, Ajinkya Rahane wasn't included in the Test squad, Sanju Samson and Yuzvendra Chahal got called up to the ODI team after missing out in the ODI World Cup, Suryakumar Yadav didn't make the ODI squad, Rinku Singh got into the ODI team and so on.

But the most eye-catching of them all was all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja's selection as the vice-captain of the T20I squad, as a deputy to Suryakumar Yadav. The decision doesn't make sense for a lot of reasons.

We've listed three of them below:

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#1 Lack of captaincy credentials

The first thing you look for while appointing a captain or vice-captain for the national team is a player's credentials. Jadeja doesn't have a lot of captaincy experience in domestic cricket. He has led in a few Ranji Trophy matches but that's about it. In the IPL, his captaincy record reads: eight matches, won two, lost six.

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) had a decent plan to give him captaincy just before IPL 2022 so he could learn in MS Dhoni's shadow and lead the team after the latter's retirement. But the plan failed miserably. The all-rounder looked out of sorts on the field, his performances dropped and the team missed out on the playoffs.

IPL 2022 was one of his worst seasons with both the bat and ball. He was left out of the squad citing fitness, with Dhoni taking over the captaincy again in the middle of the season and continuing till IPL 2023.

His confidence after the episode wouldn't be great. So, even if the selectors see Jadeja as the third captaincy choice after Hardik Pandya (arguably the first-choice captain who's still nursing his ankle injury) and Suryakumar, his being vice-captain doesn't seem to have any easy-to-explain logical reasoning behind it.

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#2 India should have moved on from Ravindra Jadeja, the player, in white-ball cricket

Axar Patel's absence from India's T20 squad was equally perplexing to Jadeja's selection as the vice-captain. Given that Axar is part of India's ongoing T20I series against Australia, it looks like he has had to make way for the senior all-rounder.

There's merit in Jadeja's selection in the squad only as a player. He was one of the best finger-spinners in IPL 2023 and did well with the bat as well. The ace all-rounder also has the skills to perform on the likely slow and tacky wickets in the West Indies and the USA, where the 2024 T20 World Cup will be held.

But Axar is not much different. He had a better IPL 2023 with the bat and worse with the ball than Jadeja. But Axar also has an average of 27.22 and a batting strike rate of 144.74 in 48 T20Is. In the few knocks he has played for India in all formats, he has looked a much better lower-order batter too.

Choosing Jadeja over Axar shows the selectors' inability to use their resources wisely. At 34, with how injury-prone he has been, the CSK man could've been relieved of his duties in white-ball cricket to increase his longevity in Tests. It's the same case as using Washington Sundar over Ravichandran Ashwin.

More importantly, for a long time, it looked like India had moved on from Jadeja in T20Is. He last played a T20I in August 2022 in that year's Asia Cup and failed to impress. Before that, he played a T20I series in the West Indies where his bowling was decent but his batting was unremarkable.

India have effectively invested in a non-T20I player by dropping a tested and improving T20I player just seven months before the World Cup.

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#3 Opportunity missed to groom a young leader

The waste of resources is also seen elsewhere. India's T20I captain for the series is 33 years old. He'll be the deputy to Pandya, 30, when the all-rounder returns to fitness. Picking a 34-year-old vice-captain is a big miss of an opportunity to bring a youngster into the captaincy mix to help Pandya and Suryakumar in the future.

The team had Shubman Gill (another sureshot starter for the World Cup and recently crowned IPL captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad (who has enough captaincy experience in domestic T20 leagues, set to be Dhoni's successor at CSK), and even Shreyas Iyer (the vice-captain for Australia T20Is) as much better options.

Any of these players could have only gained from the T20Is irrespective of the result in the series. Now, after the 2024 T20 World Cup, when India will start preparation for the 2026 edition, Pandya might still be seen as the captain but Suryakumar and Jadeja may or may not be around as his deputies.

Not bringing a young promising player in the captaincy mix just wastes the upcoming important seven months for long-term planning for the team's future.