Would it be right to keep the out-of-form Suryakumar Yadav as captain?Image Credit source: PTI
Team India will be announced today on Saturday 20th December i.e. for the T20 World Cup 2026 to be held in India and Sri Lanka. There will be a meeting of the selection committee headed by Ajit Agarkar in Mumbai today, in which the Indian squad will be selected for the World Cup. Looking at the players present in Team India's T20 squad in the last few months, it is definitely clear that the selection will not be so difficult but the poor form of captain Suryakumar Yadav has become a cause for concern. In such a situation, eyes are on whether any major action will be taken against them.
This meeting will be held on Saturday at the headquarters of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in Mumbai, in which all five selectors will be present. Current captain Suryakumar Yadav can also be a part of it. After this meeting, Chief Selector Ajit Agarkar will announce the squad in a press conference at the Board Headquarters at 1.30 pm. BCCI announced this on Friday itself and also told that captain Suryakumar Yadav will also participate in the press conference.
But the scene seen in the last T20 match played between India and South Africa, a day before the announcement of the team, has started raising questions whether Team India can retain a player struggling with poor form as captain. In this last match played in Ahmedabad, India won by 30 runs but captain Suryakumar Yadav once again failed and was out after scoring 5 runs in 7 balls. In this entire series, Surya could score only 34 runs in 4 innings.
Not only this series, but the entire year has been very bad for Surya. This year, he has scored only 218 runs in 21 innings at an average of 13.62 and strike rate of 123 and has not been able to score a single half-century. In such a situation, he is under the scanner. Questions are also being raised because if Suryakumar Yadav remains the captain in the World Cup but his form remains the same, then he will not be dropped from the playing-11. In such a situation, this can prove fatal for Team India.
So can Surya be removed from captaincy? Can there be any surprising decision in the selection committee meeting? Can Hardik Pandya, who made a comeback in this series and created a stir with the bat as well as the bowling, get the captaincy once again? If we pay attention to the statements and methods of coach Gautam Gambhir and Agarkar himself, then this is not a possibility and it is certain that Suryakumar Yadav, who has been captaining for one and a half years so close to the World Cup, will be retained.
If we talk about other places, like Surya, team's vice-captain Shubman Gill is also under the scanner. He also could not score a single half-century in T20 International this entire year. Due to him, Sanju Samson was dropped from the playing-11, while Yashasvi Jaiswal is not even able to make a place in the squad. But still, there seems to be little possibility of Gill being dropped and due to this, Jaiswal may have to sit out. Similarly, players like Nitish Kumar Reddy, Rinku Singh and Mohammed Siraj may also have to work by remaining in the reserves.
Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Shubhman Gill (vice-captain), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Verma, Hardik Pandya, Jitesh Sharma (wicketkeeper), Sanju Samson (wicketkeeper), Shivam Dubey, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakraborty, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah and Arshdeep Singh.
