Shubman Gill was omitted from the T20 World Cup 2026 squad.
Nothing went well for Shubman Gill in T20Is this year. He was suddenly recalled for the Asia Cup 2025 and immediately ascended to the vice-captaincy role, but his batting returns remained underwhelming. In a high-intent batting lineup, he clearly lagged, even when a few runs came off his bat.
Sanju Samson had hardly put a foot wrong, and Abhishek Sharma is undroppable now. The team management clearly rates Samson highly, one of the reasons he even batted in the middle order ahead of the likes of Jitesh Sharma and Rinku Singh, who are more suited to the role. But his best comes at the top, and he was unfairly dropped, considering those three centuries and other quickfire knocks.
Then, there’s also Yashasvi Jaiswal, who might still be thinking why he has been overlooked despite being ahead of both Gill and Samson in the pecking order. The issue is that competition at the top is immense, and every squad will have some harsh calls. This time, Gill and Jaiswal face the heat.
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It’s easier to understand why Shubman Gill was omitted, and he himself didn’t help himself with those low scores. But the decision might still be hasty, considering what he brings to the table. Quality-wise, Gill remains the best among all the options, including Abhishek Sharma, and he brings a higher ceiling than all of them.
For instance, Abhishek struggles against high-end pace hard lengths, even though he has made significant improvements. Meanwhile, Ishan Kishan has similar issues against shorter-length deliveries, while his game against the moving ball and outside the off-stump line can be tacky. Meanwhile, Samson has shown a tendency to slow down outside the powerplay lately.
And it’s not limited to the top order, really. The whole batting lineup plays a certain brand of cricket, and every batter has distinct weaknesses that are easily exploitable. For instance, Tilak Varma can be cramped with fast spin into the body. Meanwhile, Hardik Pandya, despite showing encouraging results against South Africa, has issues with back-of-length deliveries on the stumps line.
Eventually, all of them are high-risk players who take the maximum risk to score runs, which obviously works on the flat surfaces they play on. In Gill, India had a batter who played risk-free cricket without compromising the scoring rate in any phase. That’s how he operates in IPL, where bowling quality is the same, and he gave that invisible license to other batters to go hard.
Suryakumar Yadav has regressed, and his form leading up to the T20 World Cup 2026 doesn’t look convincing. With his unorthodox shots not coming off, he has nowhere to hide, and teams have been prudent enough not to serve him enough full balls. That means India’s only batter who could adjust to the situation’s demands while bringing high-attacking skills simultaneously can’t be trusted either.
Now, in his absence, Shubman Gill’s availability was all the more crucial to get some solidity while others continued their gung-ho approach around him. Now, Suryakumar can’t afford those soft dismissals, and India need him to fire, putting him under more pressure. Gill could have done his role to allow the Indian captain to play more freely, as he looks to regain his form.
It’s not that he wasn’t fitting in the brand of cricket India have played in this format. His IPL exploits showed his ability to maintain the standards. In addition, Gill brought those high batting skill sets to shield almost everyone in that lineup and adapt to tricky pitches, if any – basically, skilled enough to do a dual role.
It was indeed a reactionary decision by the selectors. His form shouldn’t really have been the reason to omit him at the last moment after backing him earlier. He is too good a player not to find form, especially since he has proven it in multiple IPL seasons.
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