Subramaniam Badrinath, a former Indian cricket player, has questioned the reasoning behind Shubman Gill‘s appointment as T20I vice-captain in light of the team’s recent poor performance. In the first two Twenty20 Internationals of the current series against the Proteas, Gill scored four and zero.
Badrinath found it incomprehensible that a top-order player of Sanju Samson’s calibre was left out of the T20I XI to make room for Gill.
Returning to Gill, Badrinath said that someone else ought to be appointed deputy to Suryakumar Yadav.
Three hundreds have been scored by Sanju Samson. He has three hundreds in T20 cricket, which is what we are discussing. As a player, what more do you want? Seeing a player who has done so well warm the bench is a little upsetting. He serves as the team’s vice-captain. I believe that a player may only be captain or vice-captain if they are a lock in the starting lineup. With these numbers, he has been promoted to vice-captain. In his Star Sports Tamil commentary, Badrinath said, “I can understand if there are no back-ups, but India has no lack of talent in T20s.”
Badrinath’s thoughts were echoed by Kris Srikkanth, who was also commentating during the match. He also emphasised Samson’s strong rate of scoring and said that the team management had no idea why the wicketkeeper-batter was not included in the starting lineup.
For Gill, the T20I series against Australia was nothing unusual. In five innings, he was only able to score 132 runs. It will be intriguing to watch how India puts together their XI with Gill included in the mix as the T20 World Cup 2026 draws near.
In relation to the series, South Africa and India have each won one game. On Sunday, December 14, the third game is set to take place at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamsala.
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