India’s T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav and BCCI chief selector Ajit Agarkar announced the Men in Blue squad for the Asia Cup 2025 tournament. The eight-team tournament will be held in the UAE from September 9 to 28.
One of the most notable moments was when Shubman Gill was announced in the Indian squad and was named the vice-captain of the team. This meant that there was no place for Yashasvi Jaiswal, as Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson were already the first-choice openers.
T20I skipper Suryakumar Yadav and selection chairman Ajit Agarkar spoke to the media on Tuesday about bringing Shubman Gill back into the lineup in the game's shortest format.
Shubman Gill was the vice-captain when India traveled to Sri Lanka for the T20I series, according to Suryakumar Yadav. Stating how a new cycle was started after India's T20 World Cup 2024, the management opted to bring back Gill.
“In my opinion, the last time Shubman Gill played a T20I for India was when we went to Sri Lanka. When I was leading, he was the vice-captain. That's where we started the new cycle for the T20 World Cup. After that, he got busy with all the Test series. He didn't get an opportunity to play T20Is because he was busy with Test cricket and the Champions Trophy,” Suryakumar Yadav told reporters.
“He is in the squad and we are happy to have him. This is the first big tournament we are playing after the T20 World Cup. We played a few bilaterals, but this is a good tournament to test ourselves. There are a lot of T20S before we play the first game of the T20 World Cup. This is where the journey starts for the tournament,” he added.
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However, given his obligations in the other two forms, Ajit Agarkar was honest enough to acknowledge that Sanju Samson only played as an opener because Shubman Gill was unavailable for the game's shortest format.
“Sanju was playing because Shubman and Yashaswi were not available at that point. So was Abhishek. Abhishek's performances clearly make it hard to leave him out. Plus, his bowling is handy. But, like I said, he was the vice-captain the last time he played T20 cricket. That was after the last World Cup,” said Agarkar.
Shubman Gill has impressive numbers in T20Is. He has 578 runs at an average of 30.42 and a healthy strike rate of 139.27, including one century and three fifties.
India Asia Cup 2025 Squad:
Shubman Gill (VC), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (WK), Suryakumar Yadav (C), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (WK), Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana, and Rinku Singh
Standbys: Prasidh Krishna, Washington Sundar, Riyan Parag, Yashasvi Jaiswal, and Dhruv Jurel
