"Couldn't sleep": Gambhir on dropping Samson for Sooryavanshi

The head coach of the Indian side, Gautam Gambhir, has broken his silence on how he couldn’t sleep after dropping Sanju Samson during the England series when they handed the debut cap to the 15-year-old, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, who impressed everyone after a strong performance in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026.

Samson also played for the Indian side ahead of Sooryavanshi during the home three-match T20I series against Afghanistan, which took place at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi. After a failure in the opening game, Samson celebrated two successive fifties to end the series.

Gambhir opens up on dropping Samson for Sooryavanshi

Speaking on the JioStar ahead of the upcoming home season, starting the ODI series against West Indies, Gambhir admitted that the decision to leave Samson out was personally a difficult decision for him.

“Probably that was, I’ll be honest with you, in two years of my journey, 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 a T20 format.” Gambhir expressed in the interaction.

“Someone who was Player of the Tournament, and then you have to leave him out after 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.” He addressed on JioStar.

Samson was the Player of the Tournament during the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 and collected the award due to his patience and strong outings in the knockout clashes.

“I had a very, very honest conversation with him. Vaibhav was in that kind of form, and we needed someone to score runs at the top; we needed that little bit of platform at the top as well. And he was fine with it.” Gambhir said.

“I made him understand that sometimes, I know you’re in good form, but sometimes, the players who have done well for a long time, you will have to wait for your opportunity. Social media or outside noise doesn’t decide the playing eleven.” The Indian head coach informed.

Samson returns at Sooryavanshi's expense, hits back-to-back fifties

Gambhir reckoned that he would never take the popular decisions and would always go for those which would be the right decisions for their side.

“It is very easy for me to take popular decisions, but it is probably the toughest thing for me to take the right decisions. And we’ve taken the right decision of continuing with Sanju and Abhishek.” Gambhir reflected.

Samson was the third leading run-getter of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 with 321 runs in five innings at an average of 80.25 and a blistering strike rate of 199.38, having shouldered 27 boundaries and 24 sixes in the entire competition. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, meanwhile, has managed 193 runs in six innings of his short T20I career.