When a captain misses a game, irrespective of the reason, it is always his or her deputy that steps in to take over the responsibility in that match or in a situation. That is why you have a vice-captain named in a squad. However, on Saturday, Punjab Kings bizarrely named Sam Curran as their skipper for the match against Rajasthan Royals at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium, Mullanpur in Chandigarh despite the team having named Jitesh Sharma as the vice-captain. And the decision did not go down well with fans on social media, who lambasted the franchise for their call.
Shikhar Dhawan, Punjab’s regular captain, missed the match against Rajasthan Royals owing to an injury. But while it was excepted of Jitesh to walk out for toss, given that the youngster was named as Dhawan’s deputy at the start of the IPL 2024 season, Curran was revealed as the captain.
“Shikhar picked up a niggle, that’s why I’m here,” he said after PBKS lost the toss and were put to bat first at home by RR skipper Sanju Samson.
The decision to snub Jitesh left fans angry on social media as they fumed as Punjab Kings over their bizarre action. Here are some of the tweets…
Punjab, who stand eighth in the points table after two wins in their first five matches, only made one change to their playing XI – Atharva Taide in for Dhawan.
“We would have bowled first as well, but we’ll now have to put the runs on the board. The balance has been good, we’d have liked to win a few more games, but the middle-order looks good, especially Shashank and Ashutosh. We’ve got exciting players and plenty of quality,” said Curran.
Rajasthan, on the other hand, had a few changes in their line-up as Jos Buttler and R Ashwin incurred an injury before the match. Hence, the the visitors included Rovman Powell and Tanush Kotian in their XI.
“We’ll bowl first, it looks like a decent wicket to bowl first. We’ve made a target to not think about the goal, focus on the process, work on building the team and we’re doing well. A lot of challenges outside as well, we’ve many players missing from tonight’s game. 90% of the game was good,” Samson said after winning the toss.