According to Mohammad Kaif, the roles of Shubman Gill and Suryakumar Yadav in the Indian T20 team cannot be assessed using the same criteria. The former Indian hitter believes that even when they are having trouble scoring runs, experienced match-winners should be given more chances.
Kaif backed the BCCI’s (Board of Control for Cricket in India) decision to keep Suryakumar as captain and exclude vice-captain Shubman from India’s selection for the T20 World Cup. Despite their poor batting performances in 2025, the seasoned Mumbai campaigner was chosen.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, he emphasised that Gill is still working to get the kind of extended support that Suryakumar received due to his prior supremacy in the genre.
The situations of Gill and Surya differ from one another. In T20 cricket, Surya has a track record of winning matches. In addition to winning games, he has been at the top of the ICC rankings. Here, we are unable to compare the two. For the Indian team, Gill needed to demonstrate his abilities in this style, Kaif stated.
This also applies to Surya. In this arrangement, Gill is nothing like Surya.
“Take Kohli, for instance. He didn’t score for those two years during COVID, but you backed him based on his reputation since he had a stellar record and had won matches for about ten years. He then recovered from that phase and resumed scoring. It’s not appropriate to say that if both are not in form, you should eliminate them both. “Surya deserves this,” he continued.
How he can overcome this stage is the question: Kaif
Suryakumar’s lean patch with the willow should be examined, but it shouldn’t result in his dismissal, according to Kaif. But the former cricket player who is now a broadcaster questioned whether Suryakumar’s performance is being negatively impacted by captaincy because it puts him under more strain.
“You can’t drop him. Surya needs support in this situation. You must concentrate on his areas of error and the reasons behind his inability to score. Is the captaincy to blame? Is he becoming affected by that pressure? The question is that, Kaif thought.
“In this format, he is a reliable player. How he can overcome this stage is the question. He must determine whether his technique is obvious and whether he is focussing his energies elsewhere. “He must discover these answers,” he stated.
India
