Former Indian cricketer Subramaniam Badrinath has raised doubts over Shubman Gill’s appointment as the vice-captain of India for T20Is after a string of low scores in the format. Gill had scored 4 and 0 in the first two T20Is of ongoing series against the Proteas.
Badrinath couldn’t fathom how a top-order batsman of Sanju Samson’s quality was dropped from the T20I XI to accomodate Gill in the scheme of things. Returning to Gill, Badrinath said a different option other than Gill should be made Suryakumar Yadav’s deputy.
“Sanju Samson has scored three hundreds. We are talking about T20 cricket, and he has three hundreds. What more do you want as a player? It is a little painful to see a player who has performed so well warming the bench. He is the vice-captain of the team. I think only a player who is a certainty in the XI can be captain or vice-captain. He has been made vice-captain with these numbers. I can understand if there are no back-ups, but India have no dearth of talent in T20s,” shared Badrinath during his commentary on Star Sports Tamil.
Srikkanth, who was commentating during the match alongside Badrinath, echoed his words. He also praised Samson’s high-quality striking, and said that the team management did not know why the wicketkeeper-batter kept being out of the XI.
Meanwhile, Shubman Gill didn’t find anything different in the T20I series against Australia. He scored only 132 runs in five innings. The T20 World Cup 2026 is not very far, and it will be interesting to see the combination they come up with when Gill is in contention too.
In the series it is 1-1, with India and South Africa sharing one match each. The third game is on Sunday, December 14 at Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamsala.
