New Delhi. Things have changed a lot in the national team for Hardik Pandya, who played a key role in India's title win in the T20 World Cup. Hardik, who was the vice-captain of India during the T20 World Cup, was not given the command of the T20 team for the Sri Lanka tour. Suryakumar Yadav will lead the Indian team in the shortest format of the game. After being relieved of the responsibility of captaining India, it will be interesting to see whether IPL team Mumbai Indians will retain this all-rounder as captain. The Mumbai franchise had made Hardik the captain before last season, replacing IPL's most successful captain Rohit Sharma.

After winning the T20 World Cup title, Rohit has joined the list of players like Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the Indian sports world. IPL is going to have a big auction this year and in such a situation it remains to be seen whether Rohit will remain with the Mumbai team or not. Apart from Hardik and Rohit, Suryakumar Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah also want to lead the team. The IPL Steering Committee has not yet announced how many players they will allow to be retained. It is likely that the franchise will be allowed to retain four players including one foreigner. Franchise teams will have to take some tough decisions on building a strong team for the next few years.

Mumbai Indians did not perform well under the captaincy of Hardik, who did wonders for Gujarat Titans. Ashish Nehra was there to guide Hardik in the Gujarat team, but with Mumbai he did not get that kind of guidance from coach Mark Boucher. Gautam Gambhir becoming the head coach has affected Hardik's chances of becoming the captain. However, the selection committee led by Ajit Agarkar also contributed significantly to this, which believed that Hardik was not good strategically as a captain.

The young players will also be more comfortable with Suryakumar Yadav than him. Hardik will have to perform well in the T20 International series to be played in Sri Lanka to keep himself important. He will also have to play consistently in domestic matches. Since January 2022, he has been able to play only about 50 percent of the limited overs matches for India. He has played 46 out of 79 T20 Internationals and only 23 out of 59 ODIs during this period. There are ups and downs in Indian cricket and if Hardik has to play in the Champions Trophy next year, he will have to play in the Vijay Hazare Trophy for Baroda in December.