“Sanju Samson was playing because Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal were not available at that point” - Ajit Agarkar makes a startling revelation

Indian chief selector Ajit Agarkar, after announcing India’s Asia Cup 2025 squad, has made an interesting revelation that the Indian opening batter Sanju Samson was given time in the playing XI only because players like Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal weren’t available to play the format.

Notably, Agarkar’s comment didn’t go down well with many, as the cricketing fraternity thinks that Samson has been given a longer rope to prove his worth as a top-order attacking batter following the retirements of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.

With Shubman Gill’s comeback to the T20I squad as the vice-captain, Samson might need to step out of the playing XI as Gill is expected to open the innings alongside Abhishek Sharma in the forthcoming Asia Cup campaign. 

“When you pick a T20I squad, you look at IPL performances as well. Because of overlapping series, a lot of players ended up playing T20 cricket when others were away with the Test team. That doesn’t take anything away from them as T20 players,” Agarkar told the media.

“Sanju was playing because Shubman and Yashasvi were not available at that point. So was Abhishek. Abhishek’s performances make it hard to leave him out, plus his bowling is handy. Like I said, Shubman was the vice-captain the last time we played T20Is with a full squad, right after the last World Cup in Sri Lanka. Even then, we were thinking along those lines. Now that he is available, he has been picked,” he added.

India’s T20I squad for Asia Cup 2025: Suryakumar Yadav (c), Shubman Gill (vc), Hardik Pandya, Arshdeep Singh, Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Rinku Singh, Sanju Samson.

Standby players: Prasidh Krishna, Washington Sundar, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Yashasvi Jaiswal.

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