Kumble: Split captaincy not an issue for most

Cricket365
October 7, 2015

Former India captain Anil Kumble says split captaincy is not as difficult to deal with as people may think, and that players are used to being led by different skippers as they play all over the world.

It's rare these days for one country to have a single skipper for all formats, and now India has followed suit too, with MS Dhoni leading the shorter formats, and Virat Kohli the Test side.

Kumble, who was Test skipper in 2007, said that with players taking part in the IPL and other T20 leagues, and with format sides often being very different from one another, different skippers were par for the course.

Kumble said after delivering a lecture in Mumbai: "I don't think it's difficult for players to adjust from one captain's temperament to another.

"Perhaps in my case it was already forced because I had already decided to give up playing one-day cricket and Dhoni was the captain of the one-day formats.

"And now that Dhoni has retired, Virat is the captain in Test cricket.

"I don't think for players, it's a difficult job. Players are constantly adjusting from one team to the other and from one format to the other.

"In an IPL format, the same team-mates become opposition players and sometimes the opposition players become team-mates.

"So there's constant adjustment, but once you have played with the two captains, obviously the two should have played quite a number of matches to become captain, so you know their personalities and getting adjusted to their way of thinking or doing things, I don't see it an issue.

"And South Africa have gone an additional way with a captain for each format, so perhaps that's the way things may happen.

"You may, at some point of time, have an exclusive specialist T20 team which will be very different from a Test team or a one-day team."