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Indian cricket has stepped into a fresh era. After weeks of speculation, the leadership baton has officially changed hands, kinda. Shreyas Iyer has taken over as India's new T20I captain, and he’s succeeding Suryakumar Yadav, who wrapped up his stint with a T20 World Cup title to his name.

Now, the appointment’s kicked up a lot of talk among fans, but former India captain Rohit Sharma feels the squad is heading the right way, like properly.  Speaking at the Wankhede Stadium during the Mumbai T20 League, Rohit backed Shreyas openly, while also praising Suryakumar Yadav for his stunning climb from a late entrant to a World Cup-winning skipper.

Over the past few years, Shreyas Iyer has kinda established himself as one of Indian cricket’s most steady leaders. Whether it’s in domestic tournaments or the IPL, he’s shown time after time, that calmness under pressure thing, plus that ability to bring his side together when the game is tough.

Rohit thinks those same leadership traits can really help him at the international level, and not just in theory, but in practice too.

"Surya led the team to the World Cup, and now Shreyas has been appointed the captain. I am sure that, with how he has captained his franchise, Mumbai, he's going to have a good time as well,"

And his endorsement matters a lot. After all, Rohit led India to the 2024 T20 World Cup win, before calling it a day in the format, then moving the focus to the next generation.

For Shreyas, this really feels like the biggest test of his cricketing journey. Being captain of India in T20 internationals comes with a lot of responsibility, and honestly the expectations stay high all the time. Every single decision ends up getting noticed , and if results dip for a bit then criticism can show up quick, without much warning.

While talking about the leadership transition, Rohit also shared thoughts on Suryakumar Yadav’s kind of inspiring career route.

Unlike a lot of Indian cricketers who land their international debut in their early twenties, Surya had to keep waiting. He had to be patient , because it took years of steady performances before he finally got his India cap at 31. And Rohit says, that milestone by itself is a clear sign of Surya’s determination, and also that strong self-belief.

"Nothing has come easy for so many of these cricketers, especially for Surya. He made his India debut at 31, if I am not wrong, so that shows he was always up for the fight. When the chance came, he wanted to grab it with both hands, and he did."

And once he finally got the opening, he sort of made the most of it, you know. Suryakumar transformed himself into one of the most dangerous T20 batters in world cricket. His fearless manner could flip a match in just a few overs, and his inventive stroke work would so often leave bowlers stuck, looking for solutions that weren’t there.

When Rohit retired from T20Is after India’s 2024 World Cup triumph, Suryakumar basically took over. He inherited a side that was already, in a very real way one of the strongest in the world. The Mumbai batter settled into the new responsibility right away, like it was no big deal.

India also stayed unbeaten in T20I series during his captaincy for nearly two years. The big moment landed in 2026 when India defended their T20 World Cup title, by beating New Zealand in the final at Ahmedabad.

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However, after 2025, Suryakumar’s batting form started to fade a bit, like it was getting harder to keep the momentum. Runs became more laborious to collect, consistency sort of slipped away, and that explosive strike rate which once made him the world’s top-ranked T20 batter started to fall off.  

There were still little flashes, reminders of his brilliance still appeared now and then. His match-winning innings vs the USA in the T20 World Cup showed, straight up, his calibre and what he can do. But those kinds of performances became less frequent, more rare over time, and the pattern of change was slowly, yet firmly, turning hard to deny. As the selectors began thinking ahead, the signs of the shift became impossible to ignore, even for people who wanted to look the other way.