‘India heading towards Shubman Gill being all format captain; a little unfair Axar Patel lost vice-captaincy': Aakash Chopra reacts to Asia Cup squad
'Shubman Gill is the new vice-captain for India's T20I team. What does it mean? It means that India is heading towards him being the all-format captain. He is the Test captain, will eventually be the ODI captain and if he is the vice-captain of the T20I side, that means a future captain is being prepared,' Chopra said on X.
🇮🇳 #AsiaCup Squad announced – Gill named Vice-Captain. What do you think of the squad? Any surprises? #Aakashvani pic.twitter.com/2CuWdy1C1N
— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) August 19, 2025
'If he's he vice-captain, he'll play. He's also likely to open. And if he opens, who will miss out? Sanju Samson might miss out on his place in the playing XI. This is the reason Jitesh Sharma's name is in the team. Because you need a middle-order keeper-batter. So Jitesh has been rewarded for his wonderful performance in the IPL for RCB,' he said.
He also weighed in on why Shreyas Iyer was left out of the team even with back to back stellar IPL campaigns and also said that it was a bit unfair that Axar Patel lost the vice-captaincy despite playing well.
'There is no place for Shreyas Iyer. What does it mean? The reason might be that the team was selected based on slots. Tilak is at 3, Surya is at 4, Axar at 5 and Hardik at 6 so when Iyer did not fit into this combination, he was excluded. He did everything right but they couldn't find a place for him according to the slots,' he said.
'I also feel that it was a little unfair to Axar that he is suddenly not the vice-captain any more. But that's my opinion. Team looks fine though,' he added.
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