The Smriti Mandhana Era begins — Cricket Needs a New Playbook for Leadership

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Earlier this week, Harmanpreet Kaur stepped down from India captaincy at 37, despite leading the women’s team to its historic ODI World Cup triumph. Smriti Mandhana, aged 30, takes over and her challenge is to lay down a new blueprint with her former captain playing a pivotal role in it. Virat Kohli’s withdrawal from T20 internationals and subsequently Test cricket, Rohit Sharma’s departure from T20 internationals, and the emergence of a younger generation of aggressive cricketers, point towards something larger than conventional succession.

There was a time when experience was an almost unquestioned qualification for leadership. The longer you played, the more you understood. Seniority brought authority, authority brought responsibility, and responsibility eventually brought captaincy. The same philosophy governed corporations, where leadership was traditionally the culmination of decades of accumulated experience.

Perhaps cricket is witnessing the emergence of a fundamentally different leadership model.
Consider the distinction between Test, ODI and T20 captaincy. In Tests, a captain has time to build pressure, experiment with fields, exploit changing conditions and pursue plans that might take an entire session to produce results. Leadership involves endurance, judgement, emotional stability and the ability to accumulate small advantages over extended periods.

When it comes to ODIs, the captain operates within a defined framework of powerplays, middle overs and death overs. There is a premium on planning, resource allocation and knowing when to accelerate or consolidate. Strategy remains important, but tactical adjustments become more frequent.

T20 cricket operates on an entirely different clock. There are just 120 legal deliveries in an innings. A bowler has a maximum of four overs. One poor tactical decision can fundamentally alter the contest. There is little time to recover from mistakes, and even less to wait for a strategy to mature.

The T20 captain must therefore possess six distinct leadership capabilities. First, the ability to process information and make decisions quickly without becoming impulsive. Second, tactical intelligence in understanding match-ups, probabilities and situational advantages rather than relying exclusively on reputation or established hierarchies. Third, resource allocation: recognising that the value of a resource depends not merely on its quality but on when it is deployed. Jasprit Bumrah’s four overs, for instance, represent a strategic asset whose timing can determine a match.

Fourth, tolerance for failure: understanding that an aggressive batter dismissed for 30 off 12 deliveries may have fulfilled his assignment better than someone scoring an unbeaten 40 off 35. The quality of a decision cannot always be judged by its immediate outcome. Fifth, team empowerment by creating clarity for specialists while drawing upon analysts, coaches and players rather than assuming the captain possesses all the answers. And finally, timely reinvention: recognising when a successful formula has outlived its competitive advantage.

Together, this T20 Leadership Model has implications that extend well beyond cricket. Modern businesses increasingly resemble T20 contests. Technological disruption, artificial intelligence, changing consumer behaviour and shorter innovation cycles are compressing the time available for decision-making. Organisations cannot always afford the luxury of a prolonged strategic innings.

This doesn’t necessarily make the younger manager a better leader. But it does challenge the assumption that accumulated experience automatically guarantees continued relevance.

There is, however, an important qualification. Not every business challenge requires T20 leadership. Building institutions, developing talent, establishing trust and investing in long-term capabilities often demand Test-match patience. Scaling businesses and managing established operations may require the calibrated adaptability of ODI leadership. The most effective leader must therefore understand which format the organisation is playing.

Experience remains enormously valuable, but only when accompanied by curiosity, adaptability and the willingness to relinquish established assumptions. And it is in that context that Virat Kohli 2.0 is such a stratospheric transformation!

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