Former Indian Test opener Sadagopan Ramesh has expressed his surprise after Sanju Samson was left out of the three-match T20I series squad against Zimbabwe. The Ajit Agarkar-led selection panel has picked a plethora of new players but Samson found no place in the team. Samson was also dropped from the second T20I against England as Vaibhav Sooryavanshi made his much-awaited debut.

The Kerala batter has returned with scores of 5, 0 and 1 in the last three T20I innings and thus the pressure was building on him. However, Samson was the star of the show in the 2026 T20 World Cup, scoring 321 runs in five matches at a strike rate of almost 200 and was awarded Player of the tournament.

Furthermore, Samson had a decent run in IPL 2026, scoring 477 runs for Chennai Super Kings in 14 matches.

Ramesh reckons the selectors are taking this route to ultimately select Shubman Gill in the team.

Ramesh said on his YouTube Channel, “Samson not even being in the squad is very wrong. While many might see this as a well-deserved opportunity for Prabhsimran Singh, I look at it different. Because they didn’t want it to look blatantly obvious, they are taking this route to ultimately select Shubman Gill.”

According to reports, Sanju Samson has been rested for the Zimbabwe T20Is, and Prabhsimran Singh has been given a chance after performing consistently in the last two seasons of the IPL.

Meanwhile, Shubman Gill scored 732 runs in 16 matches of IPL 2026 and played a key role in leading Gujarat Titans to the final of the tournament.

India squad for Zimbabwe T20Is: Shreyas Iyer (C), Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma (VC), Ishan Kishan (WK), Shivam Dube, Suryansh Shedge, Rinku Singh, Harsh Dubey, Varun Chakaravarthy, Prince Yadav, Yash Thakur, Ashok Sharma, Mayank Yadav, Prabhsimran Singh (WK)