'He isn't ready for the position': Ex-PAK captain miffed with Rahul's captaincy and 'attitude he carried on the field'

Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt was impressed with KL Rahul's captaincy during the two ODI matches of the three-game series against South Africa earlier this week, both of which the visitors lost comprehensively. Butt feels that Rahul isn't mentally ready to take the position of captaincy. 

Rahul is only a stand-in skipper for the ODI series. Earlier named as the vice-captain for the contest, Rahul was elevated to the position after Rohit Sharma, who was named as India's new white-ball skipper last month after Virat Kohli was removed from ODI captaincy, failed to recover from his hamstring injury. However, Rahul is among the prime contenders to take over the Test captaincy role after Kohli had resigned from the post last week. 

After India lost both the ODI matches against South Africa under Rahul, leaving the hosts to claim the series as well, Butt expressed his disappointment over Rahul's captaincy. Admitting that Rahul is a “wonderful player”, the veteran cricketer feels that the time was just to perfect to give Rahul such a huge responsibility.    

“KL Rahul is probably not ready for the position that he is in right now. He isn't mentally ready. It is hard on the guy as well. He is a wonderful player. But if you put such a huge responsibility on his shoulders before the time was right and in the presence of a legend who is already part of the team, so that is not easy to absorb,” he said on his YouTube channel.

Butt further added that India lacked that intensity and aggressiveness that they showed under the captaincy of Kohli, which he felt was evident from the manner in which South Africa beat India.

“He isn't unlucky. India have always produced wonderful batters, technically correct batters, big run scorers. What they always lacked was genuine pace, attitude, intensity and aggressiveness. To bring all these factors into the team, you need an aggressive mindset. You found that in Kohli, in Dhoni as well and the team was winning in overseas. But suddenly it seems that India is back to square one. May be it is too much to do with the captain, and the attitude he carried in the field. There was nothing in these two matches which I can point out and say okay India really challenged South Africa. They simply rolled over India. They couldn't stop a single run," he added. 

India lost by 31 runs in the series opener and by 7 wickets in the second ODI. The third ODI will be played on January 23 in Cape Town.