India head coach Gautam Gambhir has said he’s not in favor of split captaincy for three international cricket formats and would ‘ideally’ prefer one leader. He, however, also understands that such an arrangement was no longer viable in the current scenario with packed international calendars and T20 leagues. The last time India had an all-format captain was in 2024 until Rohit retired in T20Is. Even then, he wasn’t actively captaining in T20Is in 2023 as his main focus was on the 50-over World Cup. Currently, Rohit is the ODI captain and Suryakumar Yadav the T20I skipper, while a Test skipper is yet to be selected. “Ideally, as a coach, if you ask me, it’s much easier to work with one guy — if you have 1 captain for all three formats,” Gambhir said in an exclusive interview withCNN-News18.”I’m saying ideally, but it never happens because you have to realize in today’s day and age, you can’t have a captain captaining for 12 months in a year because you’re playing ten months of international cricket and then you’re playing two months of IPL. “So, imagine who’s going to be leading India would definitely be leading the franchise. Putting a young guy captaining the side for 12 months in a year is putting a lot of toll on his mental being or on his game as well. So, ideally it’s one, but in today’s day and age, it is always better to have two because obviously that pressure can actually be distributed among two people, and it gets much easier for a player to try and be free when he’s not captaining the side.” Before Rohit, Virat Kohli was the all-format captain who was also leading Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) at the time. During his tenure, cross-format communication and streamlining of the vision used to be key reasons behind the arrangement. After Kohli stepped down from T20I captaincy, BCCI made Rohit the T20I as well as the ODI captain and reports attributed it to the same reason. Kohli then resigned from Test captaincy too and Rohit took over across the board. If Shubman Gill is made the Test captain as reported then it’ll be the first time India will have three different captains for three formats.