A former national selector claimed that India head coach Gautam Gambhir played a major role in Shubman Gill missing out on the T20 World Cup squad announced on Saturday. Gill, who returned to T20Is in September as vice-captain, hasn’t scored a fifty in four months and managed just 32 runs in three games during the recent South Africa series.
Speaking to PTI on condition of anonymity, the ex-BCCI selector said bringing Gill back into T20Is based on his England Test heroics was a “wrong move,” which came at the expense of in-form Sanju Samson. He added that the decision to drop Gill was merely a “course correction” by the Agarkar-led selection panel, but noted it bore significant Gambhir influence.
“If making him vice-captain for Asia Cup riding on his England Test heroics was a wrong move as Sanju (Samson) had done nothing wrong, the move to drop him just five games before the start of the T20 World Cup indicates that it is more of a course correction done by Agarkar’s panel. “And the decision has more footprints of the head coach, who’s actually not known for maintaining continuity,” a former national selector told PTI.
What did Agarkar say about Gill?
Gill was brought back into the T20I fold as part of a larger plan by the BCCI for the 25-year-old. After handling Test captaincy duties with assurance on the England tour, the selectors believed they had identified the next face of Indian cricket. With Gill also replacing Rohit Sharma as India’s ODI captain ahead of the Australia tour in October, speculation grew that he was being groomed as an all-format leader.
However, Gill failed to live up to expectations in T20Is, scoring 291 runs in 15 innings at a strike rate of just over 137.
Defending the decision, Agarkar said Gill missed out primarily due to the team combination the selectors settled on, rather than purely because of his form.
“We know what a quality player he is, but, perhaps short of a little bit of runs at the moment,” Agarkar said at the press conference for India’s squad announcement.
“(He was) unfortunate to miss out on the last World Cup as well because, you know, we went to a different combination. But it’s the combinations more than anything else. Two keepers at the top, that’s the way we want to try. Someone has to miss out when you pick (squad of)15 and, unfortunately, it’s Gill at this point,” he added.
