IPL 2022: Pressure of captaincy may have cost Mayank Agarwal a place in India’s Test squad – Ravi Shastri

Former Indian head coach Ravi Shastri reckons pressure of captaincy may have cost Mayank Agarwal a place in India’s Test squad. The national selectors announced the Test squad for the one-off Test against England and Agarwal was not included as he isn’t in the best of forms.

Mayank Agarwal could only muster 196 runs in 13 matches at an average of 16.33 and a strike rate of 122.50 in Tata IPL 2022. Thus, he could not lead from the front and deliver the goods for the franchise.

Shastri feels Mayank Agarwal and Ravindra Jadeja are in the same boat as both of them never lead any team at the state level and they looked uncomfortable while leading in the IPL. Jadeja also could not deliver the goods for Chennai Super Kings as a leader as the defending champions lost six out of their first eight matches.

On the other hand, PBKS also could not qualify for the playoff stages as they managed only seven wins in 14 matches. In fact, PBKS failed to win two matches in a row in the season and thus could not build any kind of winning impetus.

Shastri added that Mayank Agarwal is a fantastic batter but could not handle the pressure of leading the team.

“Mayank Agarwal is in the same boat as Ravindra Jadeja,” Shastri said on ESPNcricinfo’s analysis show T20 Time Out. “Guys who have never captained sides, you ask them to captain franchises. This is no disrespect to Mayank. Because I love the kid. I know how he plays his cricket, how determined he is. But it’s putting a guy who is very good at what he does in a wrong place. And it can have problems. Serious problems. Serious repercussions. It could have cost him his place in the Indian side. Test side, everything, because the selectors will judge on current form, they will judge on what they actually see.

“So it hurts me because I know how good a player he is. But obviously, the pressures of captaincy will weigh on anybody’s mind. You saw Jadeja turning out to be a different cricketer. Mayank Agarwal turned out to be a different cricketer. We know how good they are as individual cricketers. In future this is a strong message to the franchise to be very smart about who you pick as captain.”

Former Indian all-rounder feels Punjab should appoint a new captain for the next season in order to get the best out of Mayank Agarwal.

“It’s Punjab’s headache,” Shastri said. “Punjab should. I mean to get the best out of Agarwal. Fabulous player. But if you put that kind of pressure on him, then you can see. I don’t want to go into details but you can see that it is affecting him.”

Punjab will look to bounce back stronger in the season and so will Mayank Agarwal.