Team India head coach Gautam Gambhir has revealed that dropping Sanju Samson for the teen batting prodigy Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was probably the hardest choice he has made during his coaching tenure.
Speaking to JioStar, Gambhir asserted that they had to leave out the T20 World Cup 2026 player of the tournament, Samson, for Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, who was in red-hot form after an exceptional IPL 2026 season. He went on to add that he couldn’t get proper sleep after making that decision.
“In two years of my journey, that was the only night I could not sleep, and I told this to Sanju because I knew that it was probably the toughest decision in my coaching tenure in the T20 format, to leave out someone who was Player of the Tournament after only three or four games. The reason was probably that Vaibhav was in that kind of form as well, and we had to win the series,” Gambhir said on JioStar.
Sanju Samson was dropped from India’s playing XI for the second T20I against England. While he made his comeback for the fifth and final T20I on the England tour, he was rested for the subsequent three-match Zimbabwe tour, with Sooryavanshi playing all three games.
“Because ultimately you are there and when you are playing for India, or when you are coaching India, you want to win each and every series possible. I had a very, very honest conversation with him and I told him that that is one of the reasons why, because Vaibhav was in that kind of form, and we needed someone to score runs at the top, we needed that little bit of a platform at the top as well. And he was fine with it. And that’s a conversation which me and Sanju had, and he took it in good spirits,” he added.
Further, Gambhir asserted that young players like Sooryavanshi need to wait for their time in the XI. Interestingly, Samson was slotted as an opener along with Abhishek Sharma in the recent Afghanistan T20I series.
“I know, it is (tough). But then, I made him understand that I know you’re in good form, but sometimes with the players who have done well for a long time, you will have to wait for your opportunity,” he concluded.
