Former Indian captain Mithali Raj has backed the Indian opening batter, Smriti Mandhana, to lead India in ODIs and Tests, while her partners Shafali Verma and Jemimah Rodrigues should be handed the reins of the Indian T20I side.
Notably, Mithali’s comments came right after India’s T20 World Cup 2026 exit from the group stage. It’s important to note that Harmanpreet Kaur led India to the ODI World Cup 2025 title win last year.
In an interview with PTI, Mithali said the time has come to groom more leaders in the national set-up. Moreover, Mithali has also shared a few words on India’s poor fielding skills, which resulted in India suffering a lot of defeats.
“I at least thought Smriti would lead the ODI format two, three years back. But now also, with the experience that she has, the vast experience, at least the one-day and Test format should be given to her and perhaps the T20 to someone younger, I feel, in the T20 format. But one day, clearly, you need experience,” Mithali told PTI.
“For T20Is, I think Shafali. Her format is T20Is. And she has led under-19 World Cup. Why not Shafali? Jemi too of course, yes. She has led in the WPL. But I do believe that whoever they pick, they need to give them some time to settle. Because all of us got time to settle in our role as a leader,” said Mithali.
“As far as fielding is concerned, it also boils down to your individual training. Like all of us, when we go back home, we are all focusing on our batting, on our bowling. But not particularly on fielding. We only do that when we come into the camps. There might be some players who would be working on their fielding. But as a team, if we want to do well, we need to give equal attention to all departments,” she concluded.
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