India squad for 2026 T20 World Cup was announced and one decision that raised eyebrows was the exclusion of Shubman Gill from the squad. He was removed from the team despite being the vice-captain and in his place Axar Patel was reinstated back as vice-captain. Gill's exclusion ended weeks of questions and debates that kept on going on his poor form as he had already disrupted the settled opening combination of Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson.
According to multiple sources of IANS, the decision to exclude Gill was pushed by India's all-format leader.
---Advertisement---
Also Read: Shubman Gill asked to ‘detach’ from T20Is after getting dropped from India’s T20 World Cup squad
---Advertisement---
“To leave out Gill, it was a tough but necessary decision. It was taken in the interest of the team. The people in charge of the T20I team had realised a while back that their plan with Gill in it wasn't working. It was about when do they change and this course correction was done on the squad's selection day,” further said sources.
Interestingly, Gill is not alone in struggling for form. Captain Suryakumar Yadav has managed only 244 runs in his last 22 innings, without registering a single half-century. But it was very clear that the captain would not be dropped - “Nobody was going to drop a captain in a World Cup selection meeting. That would have made for a foolish look,” said the sources.
Also Read: YEAR ENDER 2025: Five shocking defeats India received in 2025
India Squad for T20 World Cup 2026
Suryakumar Yadav (C), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel (vc), Ishan Kishan (WK), Sanju Samson (WK), Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakaravarthy, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Rinku Singh, Washington Sundar