Former Indian cricketer Mohammad Kaif has said that if the team management was so intent on sticking to the T20 World Cup team in Ireland and hence couldn’t fit in Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, they shouldn’t have snubbed Rohit Sharma as captain when he led India to the Champions Trophy win either.
Even before the series started, the team management had made it clear that Sooryavanshi would have to wait for his chance, backing the established opening pair of Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma.
The left-right opening combination, part of India’s T20 World Cup-winning team, has been used since 2024. But both Samson and Abhishek struggled in the two games against Ireland in testing conditions, raising fresh questions over the pair’s long-term future.
“If we talk about the best playing XI, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi had a place in there; his name should have been there. The logic given was that this is a World Cup-winning team, so we will go with the same XI and Vaibhav will have to wait,” Kaif said while speaking on his YouTube channel.
“But you have to be consistent with that logic, right? When Rohit Sharma was dropped as captain after winning the Champions Trophy, it was said that they were focused on the future, so they wanted a young captain,” Kaif added.
After stunning India by 34 runs in the series opener, Ireland returned less than 48 hours later to edge Shreyas Iyer’s team by a solitary run on Sunday, June 28, sealing one of the greatest series wins in their history.
