Earlier this week, when Ajit Agarkar’s selection panel met to pick the Indian teams for the one-off Test and three One-Day Internationals against Afghanistan next month, a third different vice-captain for the longest format in as many home series was installed.Ravindra Jadeja was Shubman Gill’s deputy for the two-Test series against West Indies in October, a development stemming only because Rishabh Pant was unavailable, recovering as he was from a broken foot sustained in Manchester in July. Pant, who was the vice-captain in England, returned to that role – conferred on him for the first time before the England tour as India embarked on a new adventure in Test cricket – for the South Africa showdown and led the country in Guwahati when Gill was ruled out with a neck injury.It wasn’t the most auspicious of captaincy debuts for the wicketkeeper-batter, who oversaw India’s heaviest defeat by runs (408) ever in the history of the five-day game. Pant himself had a match to forget as batter, dismissed for 7 and 13, the former to an ill-advised hoick against Marco Jansen in the second over after lunch on day three when his side was already on the ropes, at 105 for four in response to the visitors’ 489.Now, it would appear as if Pant won’t be leading the country in a Test for a while to come after being stripped of his vice-captaincy, which has been conferred on K.L. Rahul. Perhaps in a tacit, roundabout, face-saving way, Agarkar and his band of wise men have acknowledged without saying it in as many words that they made a mistake by overlooking Rahul’s leadership credentials when they decided to move on from the Rohit Sharma era. Rahul is already an all-format international captain, is in his 12th year at the highest level and has plenty of top-flight cricket left in him, but it is learnt that when the selectors met ahead of the England tour to identify the next leadership group, they didn’t even so much as give the Karnataka batter a thought.Anyway, we digress. Where does this latest development leave Pant? On the same day when he was divested of the vice-captaincy, the 28-year-old was also dumped from the 50-over squad to take on the Afghans. He is already superfluous to India’s T20I plans, not having played in that variant since July 2024; he hasn’t also figured in a 50-over international since August 2024, though he appeared to be back in favour when he was picked in the squad to play New Zealand at home this January before picking up an abdominal injury at nets before the first match which ruled him out of the entire series.Pant has been supplanted as the second wicketkeeper in the ODI squad by Ishan Kishan, whose international comeback is gathering pace since his return to the national side ahead of the T20 World Cup earlier this year. It means the Lucknow Super Giants captain, the highest paid player in IPL history, has been pigeonholed for the time being as only a Test player, a remarkable turnaround in perception given that he made his T20I debut a good year and a half before first donning the Test cap.