Former Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh backed Shubman Gill to bounce back strongly after his exclusion from India’s squad for T20 World Cup 2026. The Punjab batter, who is also the Test and the ODI captain, returned to the shortest format of the game in Asia cup 2025 earlier this year. However, Gill was dropped from the T20I side for the marquee event after a string of poor performances in the series against AUS and SA.
‘Not a signal to Gill’
Speaking to reporters at the launch of Legends 90 League, Harbhajan said that Gill simply couldn’t find a place in the T20 WC squad due to the stiff competition. The former Indian spinner backed the ODI and Test captain to make a brilliant comeback in T20Is soon while adding that by no means was the star taking his place for granted.
“It’s not a signal to Gill. He was not taking his place for granted. The competition is so much and they’ve got too many players in the present scenario who can fill that slot and can do well for the team. This is not the end of the road for Gill; he’s a great, great player with beautiful technique, and he will make a brilliant comeback, and not to forget, he’s still the Test captain for India,” Harbhajan Singh said.
While the Punjab batter fared well in ODIs in 2025, amassing 490 runs from 11 matches at an average of 49, his performance in T20Is has been quite poor. Gill returned to action in the IND vs SA T20I series after suffering a neck injury during the 1st Test in Kolkata. following which he was forced to miss the ODI series as well. In the three T20Is that he featured in, he managed to register knocks of 4, 0 and 28. He was ruled out of the 4th T20I due to a foot injury and was replaced by Sanju Samson in the 5th T20I.
India squad for T20 WC 2026
Suryakumar Yadav (c), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Sanju Samson, Shivam Dube, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Rinku Singh
