In the last one year, the Indian team emerged as one of the powerful T20I teams. After big players like Rohit and Virat retired from T20I cricket, the Indian team settled down quite easily. Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma at the top and Surya Kumar Yadav and Tilak Varma in the middle helped India reach the highest scores.
Blistering starts from the openers and power hitting in the middle and the capability to score fast down the order helped India to reach milestones and it made the team monstrous. It was the story of October 2024 October to August 2025. After that, the Indian team looked a bit shaggy and unsettled.
After a successful IPL season, Virat Kohli announced his test retirement along with Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill who was not playing T20Is named the captain of the test team after that he was included in the Asia Cup squad as Vice Captain which led the team to a conflict. The management had to choose between Sanju and Shubman;after that Shubman won the race to play as an opener in the team.Though, he is yet to score a fifty in T20Is in 2025.
The unsettled saga of Sanju Samson
Before the Sri Lanka series in 2024, Sanju’s batting position in the team was unsettled. Sanju Samson came as an opener for the first time in the absence of Shubman Gill who was suffering from neck spasm in that match. However, he got out in a duck in his first outing as an opener.
After the series, Sanju Samson again played a few poor knocks against Bangladesh and in the third match of that series, he smashed a century. He again smashed a century in the very next match against South Africa but got out with a duck in the next two matches. The wicket keeper batsman again smashed a century in the last match of the series against South Africa.
He was scoring hundreds or making zero and in the England series, Sanju again failed miserably. It was his last series as an opener, since then he has got a chance to open the innings.
Shubman Gill fails to step up as an opener
Gill came back into the T20I set up from the Asia Cup where he was picked up as Vice Captain of the team. He has been also opening since then.
Shubman Gill’s last half-century in T20Is came one year ago when he captained the Indian side for the very first time against Zimbabwe. In 2025, Gill only made 291 runs in 15 innings with an average of 19.4 which does not go with the merit of Gill also failing to stand more than 27.7 minutes on average at the crease.
This is an area of concern for the team management as the World Cup is approaching soon, the Indian opening combination remains unanswered. Sanju’s lack of consistency and Shubman’s lack of knack for making runs, creating problems for the Indian management.
