‘If Abhishek Sharma fails, you’ll drop him?’- Yograj Singh furious with BCCI for excluding Shubman Gill from India’s T20 WC 2026 squad

Shubman Gill's exclusion from India's 2026 T20 World Cup roster has drawn harsh criticism from former cricket player Yograj Singh.

Gill was eventually left off the team for the international competition following a run of subpar performances in the Asia Cup 2025 and the series that followed against Australia and South Africa. Gill shouldn't be benched based only on four or five poor performances, according to Yograj.

He went on to say that a number of Indian cricket players had been given numerous opportunities despite wasting the majority of them. Yograj questioned Gill's exclusion and questioned whether Abhishek Sharma would suffer the same fate if he went through a brief period of poor performance.

“Shubman Gill is a vice-captain. Why has he been dropped? Is it only because he failed in four or five innings? Indian cricket has seen many players who barely performed in 10 matches despite being given 100 opportunities. They kept playing; everyone knows the reason. Abhishek Sharma came in a couple of years ago. If he fails in four innings, will you drop him too?” Yograj told journalist Ravish Bisht.

The Punjab batsman scored 490 runs from 11 games at an average of 49 in ODIs in 2025, but his performance in T20Is has been lackluster. 

After suffering a neck injury in the first Test in Kolkata, which had previously kept him out of the ODI series, Gill returned for the India vs. South Africa T20I series. Gill scored 4, 0, and 28 in his three Twenty20 Internationals.  

Sanju Samson took his spot in the fifth and final T20I after he was sidelined for the fourth owing to a foot injury. Gill scored slightly more than 200 runs for India in 15 Twenty20 International matches in 2025, however he did not reach a fifty.

Some saw Shubman Gill’s inclusion in India’s T20I XI as forced and making him vice-captain was just to make sure, he wasn’t dropped. Due to Gill’s inclusion, Sanju Samson lost his spot as an opener, despite hitting three centuries in T20Is in 2024, and was moved to middle order.

Samson was dropped from the T20I XI, as he failed to adapt to middle order role in Asia Cup and was replaced by Jitesh Sharma.

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