India is again back in a similar predicament as when stalwarts like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and Saurav Ganguly hung their boots and Team India was left to fill in those huge vacant spaces left by the stars.

With Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma announcing their retirement in the T20 format, it seems the cat has been put amongst the pigeons to look for a long-term replacement solution.

For over a year, both the stars took time off in T20 tournaments, giving enough time for coach Rahul Dravid and the selection panel to look for contenders to take up the vacant role during the duo’s sabbatical.

When the solution for a sound replacement did not happen, both the stars were roped in back for the World T20 tournament under the new Chief Selector Ajit Agarkar.

India won the 2024 T20 World Cup and many forgot to notice the elephant in the room, that is who after the Rohit and Virat?

Rahul Dravid ended his coaching stint with Team India on a high with an ICC trophy. This covered some of the glaring gaps and cracks the coach had left out in his coaching stint.

Under Coach Rahul Dravid, we saw over the past year, too many tweaking in the playing eleven, too many debuts given to non-deserving players, and Players being selected in the wrong formats. For eg. ODI debuts given over IPL performances.

This was a recipe for disaster which ended up with Team India being where they were in terms of finding a suitable replacement.

Deserving candidates had to wait a long time to even get a look in the squad. Sarfaraz Khan is one such example who had to kick the door of the selection panel by scoring a mountain of runs in the domestic circuit.

Now with the two stalwarts retiring from the T20 format, it is just a matter of a year or two when they retire from the other two formats too.

So, has the outgoing coach created a new headache for the incoming coach Gautam Gambhir?

While this theory is entirely not true as some alternates have been created but with these alternates not being given a long rope with constant chopping and changing in the playing eleven has hurt Team India’s selection.

Gautam Gambir now had to look at the new look T20 side entirely with a new outlook. This was evident with the appointment of Surya Kumar Yadav. The selectors took the bold move to not give the captaincy to Hardik Pandya, touted to be the next Team India captain during Rahul Dravid  era.

Please Read : The Royal Snub – Suryakumar Yadav ‘Sky’ becomes India’s T20 Captain

With India set to go through a tough transition period, outgoing batting coach Vikram Rathour said that the recently concluded Zimbabwe series gave Indian cricket a glimpse of its future T20I side.

While Team India has still a few years in Test and ODI cricket to get their replacements, the India selection panel will need to put their work shoes on to start being on the lookout for a Test Opener and a No. 3 Batsman.

While there is the constant chatter of India having a lot of depth in domestic cricket and that finding a replacement may not be an issue, we at www.Supersports360 are a bit sceptical of the fact that Team India has not produced a genuine bowling allrounder like Kapil Dev in the past 3 decades. Hence the over-reliance on one Hardik Pandya.

Vikram Rathod – India’s outgoing batting coach

“There are lots of very talented and skilful players who are coming through the system. The only thing we need to make sure is the transition is done in a controlled manner. It needs to be gradual,” Rathor told the media.

Outgoing batting coach did show confidence in Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Yashasavi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, but still could not make up his mind on the two to replace the retiring stars. A similar confusion was shown in the ODIs.

SuperSports View on Likely replacements for the Two Stars:

Yashasvi Jaiswal For Rohit Sharma

Yashasvi looked in red hot form before the start of India’s T20 World Cup campaign but unfortunately, lost his place to accommodate Virat Kohli who opened with Captain Rohit Sharma. While this gave India balance for the World Cup, Yashasvi seems to cement his place as India’s T20 opener after the Zimbabwe and the Sri Lanka series.

Shubman Gill for Virat Kohli

Shubman Gill was ignored for the T20 World Cup, With Shubman now made Vice captain in both T20 and ODI formats, it is clear that the current selection team and Coach sees a future leadership role for the Gujarat Titans captain.

While yet to be as effective as he is in IPL, Gautam Gambir is backing him for the moment

Sadly missing out as openers would be Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ishan Kishan who were front runners for the role a few months back.

While there is scope for changes in the middle order batting lineup, the “ROKO” replacement looks a done deal for the T20 Format.

Gautam Gambhir can take some time to decide on who will replace Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in ODI and Test as the duo is likely to play ODI format till The Champions Trophy next year and till The World Test Championship scheduled in June 2025.