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Hardik Pandya Skips Suryakumar Yadav's First Team Huddle As India Captain; Seen In Practice Later

Abhinav Tyagi

SKY and Hardik - (X.com)SKY and Hardik - (X.com)

Ahead of the first T20I match between India and Sri Lanka on July 27, the Men in Blue are sweating hard in the nets. 

On Tuesday, July 23, BCCI released footage of India's first training session under new head coach Gautam Gambhir. It is a new and young team India, as Suryakumar Yadav will lead the side in the T20Is. 

There were reports of rifts between Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav as the latter pipped the MI captain to become the new India skipper despite Pandya being the vice-captain under Rohit Sharma's tenure. 

The rumours were put to rest when a video surfaced where Hardik greeted SKY with a warm hug before departing for Sri Lanka. However, in the latest events, a report from Dainik Jagran reported that Pandya skipped the first team huddle held by SKY as India captain. 

Even, Abhishek Tripathi, a leading sports journalist, also reported the same and stated that the reason is unknown why Hardik missed the team huddle. He also added that Pandya was later seen in the practice session, while Gambhir also had a long interaction with him over his batting stance. 

"Today was the first practice session of the Indian team in Sri Lanka. The source present there told that when the new captain Suryakumar Yadav called the team for the first time in the Hurdle to address it, Hardik Pandya was not included in it. Now it is not known why he was not there at that time. However, he joined the practice session later," he wrote.

Ahead of the Sri Lanka series, chief selector Ajit Agarkar reasoned that Pandya's fitness was one of the reasons behind selecting SKY as the new India captain.