Ajit Agarkar reveals reason behind Shubman Gill's omission from India's squad

The Board of Control for Cricket in India BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia on Saturday announced Indias squad for the upcoming T20 World Cup 2026Team Indias star batsman Shubman Gill who is currently struggling with his form has been dropped from the squadSpeaking about his omission Team Indias chief selector Ajit Agarkar said that the righthander is falling short of runs and the management has opted for different combinations over anything elseI mean obviously Shubman was the vicecaptain he is not in the team so there will have to be somebody else as vicecaptain And Axar before that when Shubman was actually not playing the T20Is and playing Test cricket when a lot of the T20Is used to clash Axar was the vicecaptain So that is about the vicecaptain he saidIn Gills absence Axar Patel has been named as Suryakumar Yadavs deputy for the marquee tournamentFurther speaking he also said that Jitesh Sharma has done nothing wrong but the management wants to go ahead with different combinationsAbout continuity I mean you are looking at combinations at the moment If your keeper is going to bat at the top our thought was to have another keeper just in case there is a problem At the moment Jitesh was there again has not done too much wrong I mean Shubman we know what a quality player he is perhaps short of a little bit of runs at the moment Unfortunate to miss out in the last World Cup as well because we went with different combinations but its the combinations more than anything else said AgarkarAlong with Gill opening batsman Yashasvi Jaiswal has also been sidelined despite having a good record in the format Swashbuckling batsman Abhishek Sharma has been given a nod ahead of JaiswalIshan Kishan who was out of favor of the Indian selectors for a long period of time has made his comeback in the shortest format setup He has been picked as the second wicketkeeperbatsman option with Sanju Samson securing the first spotThe defending champions Team India will open their global showpiece campaign by playing a match against the United States of America USA on February 7 at the Wankhede Stadium in MumbaiThe Men in Blue will lock horns against Namibia on February 12 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi The highoctane match between archrivals India and Pakistan is scheduled to be played on February 15 at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo India will conclude their group stage matches by playing a clash against the Netherlands on February 18 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in AhmedabadIt will be interesting to see if the Men in Blue manage to defend their T20 World Cup titleIndias squad for T20 World Cup 2026 Suryakumar Yadav C Abhishek Sharma Sanju Samson WK Tilak Varma Hardik Pandya Shivam Dube Axar Patel VC Rinku Singh Jasprit Bumrah Harshit Rana Arshdeep Singh Kuldeep Yadav Varun Chakaravarthy Washington Sundar Ishan Kishan WKWith ANI Inputs