Gautam Gambhir ignores media at airport, keeps silence on Shubman Gill’s T20 World Cup 2026 exclusion

Reactions are pouring in on Ajit Agarkar’s shocking news of Shubman Gill’s exclusion from the T20 World Cup squad. The 15-man squad was announced on Saturday afternoon and caught everyone off guard as the 26-year-old was not included. While it is true that runs have been scarce, Gill has emerged as a standout player, recently taking on the roles of Test and ODI captain and later T20Is vice-captain. However, chief selector Agarkar took a tough decision by leaving Gill out of the squad.

Just a few hours after the squad announcement in Mumbai, India head coach Gautam Gambhir was seen arriving at the Delhi airport on Saturday evening. It was no surprise that he was swarmed by the media with lots of questions about India’s T20 World Cup squad.

However, the former India opener bypassed the media and completely ignored their questions. While reporters persistently probed his thoughts on the team, especially Gill’s dismissal, he chose not to answer any questions. Gambhir chose not to engage in a confrontation, quickly moving towards his car before leaving the airport.

#WRISTWATCH | Indian Men’s Cricket Team Head Coach Gautam Gambhir arrives in Delhi

BCCI today announced India’s squad for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026. pic.twitter.com/RbqVtaixyR

— ANI (@ANI) December 20, 2025

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Coming back to Gill, he had re-entered India’s T20I plans as vice-captain during the Asia Cup earlier this year, which resulted in Sanju Samson moving back into the batting order. A few matches later he was omitted from the Samson XI and Jitesh Sharma was preferred in his place.

Gill has played 15 matches and scored 291 runs since his return to India’s T20I squad. However, he is yet to score a fifty and his highest score was 47 against Pakistan in the Asian Cup.

Questions arose during Gill’s time in the T20I playing XI as he along with Abhishek tried to pace the scoring with a strike rate of 137.26.

Gill suffered a toe injury before the Lucknow T20I against South Africa, which caused him to miss the final match in Ahmedabad, where Samson stepped in and scored 37 runs from 22 balls.

India’s T20 World Cup 2026 squad: Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel (Vice-Captain), Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Sanju Samson (week), Washington Sundar, Ishan Kishan, Rinku Singh

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