Inside story: How Shubman Gill learned about his T20 World Cup 2026 snub

And unfortunately, it’s him (Gill). The runs hadn’t been coming. He was informed that the call had to be made keeping the combination in mind,” “Gill was informed about the non-selection just minutes before the meeting concluded. The selection committee met on Saturday to finalise the squad for the World Cup, and it was expected to be a routine meeting. Now that Gill has been let go from the squad, one can’t help but think about how the team management gave out signals once he was replaced by Samson in the final T20I against South Africa in Ahmedabad. Plenty of deliberation happened over the Shubman Gill move, and it has now come to light that the batter had no inclination about being shown the door from the T20I setup. There was communication about the 26-year-old sustaining a toe injury on the eve of the fourth T20I in Lucknow, but considering the runs weren’t coming, it has been learnt that the management did want to try out Samson at the top to keep all their options open. The answer is probably no. The chorus was growing over the 26-year-old’s inclusion in the squad as vice-captain earlier this year, a move that led to Sanju Samson and Rinku Singh being dropped from the playing XI. Hence, it is no surprise that neither Agarkar nor Suryakumar mentioned the word “form” when speaking about Gill’s exclusion. “You’re looking at combinations at the moment. In 2025, Suryakumar represented India in 21 games, scoring just 218 runs at an average of less than 13 and a strike rate of less than 118. But did anyone expect Shubman Gill to be dropped from India’s 15-member T20 World Cup squad? The meeting roughly lasted for 1.5 hours, and once the call was taken, the selectors decided to inform Gill personally about the move. Gill played a total of 15 matches in 2025, scoring 291 runs at a strike rate of a tad over 137. And now that all is done, Gill once again finds himself in the same spot as the 2024 T20 World Cup – out of the reckoning. It was a decision made at the last minute, and the committee waited until the last hour to inform the Test and ODI captain of his T20I fate. While these numbers aren’t impressive, considering the current state of T20Is, but wait to read skipper Surya’s stats. Gill had a lot to prove, despite being the poster boy of Indian cricket following the retirements of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma from Test cricket.

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Rather, Gill was gearing up for the assignment as part of the five-match series against New Zealand, which began on January 21. It’s not because he’s not a good player,” Agarkar explained the decision while speaking to the reporters in Mumbai. While the chatter might be all about the potential combination of powers, one can discern that Gill’s recent form likely played a role in him not securing the opening slot. Scoring runs in T20Is was the need of the hour, and even though he couldn’t, no one could have anticipated that chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar would pull the plug on the Gill experiment this soon, and this close to the T20 World Cup, where India will look to defend their title and become the first team to win the competition on home soil. nevertheless, now that the team has been put in the public domain, it can be safely reported that there was nothing routine about the same. Gill, who made the world his oyster in the five-match Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy against England by amassing 754 runs, quickly found himself subjected to intense trolling on social media, mainly because he replaced Rohit as ODI captain and was parachuted into the T20I scheme of things. Yes, Gill’s numbers left much to be desired, but it also needs to be noted that his numbers are significantly better than those of captain Suryakumar Yadav, who played five more matches than the 26-year-old in this calendar year. Someone has to miss out when you take 15.