It is a little painful to see Sanju Samson warming the bench: Subramaniam Badrinath

Subramaniam Badrinath called it "painful to see Sanju Samson warming the bench" despite his scoring three T20I centuries. Badrinath questioned the team management's preference for Shubman Gill over Samson, criticizing the lack of clarity in selection strategy ahead of the T20 World Cup 2026.

14 Dec 2025 14:04 IST

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Former Indian cricketer Subramaniam Badrinath has questioned the Indian team management, led by Gautam Gambhir, for consistently omitting the keeper-batter Sanju Samson from the Indian T20I playing XI in the ongoing series against South Africa.

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Speaking on-air on Star Sports, Badrinath has slammed the Indian selection committee, led by Ajit Agarkar, for appointing Shubman Gill as the new vice-captain of the Indian T20I team despite the opening batter’s poor stats in the shortest format of the game.

"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," said Badrinath.

Interestingly, Gill has been below average in the shortest format of the game, scoring only 263 runs at an average of 23.90 in his last 14 T20I innings. On the other hand, Samson has three centuries in this particular format.

"He (Gill) 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 has no dearth of talent in T20s," he added.

For the uninitiated, Gill was reintroduced to the T20I setup ahead of the Asia Cup in September 2025, following his exceptional Test series draw against England away from home. He replaced Sanju Samson at the top, but hasn’t scored enough runs since then, which is a major concern for India ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup 2026 in India and Sri Lanka.

India will play only eight games before the start of the ICC T20 World Cup 2026 campaign. While three games are scheduled against South Africa in the ongoing five-match series, they will next lock horns with New Zealand at home in a five-match T20I series.

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