On Saturday, January 18, the Indian cricket team announced its squad for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025, which will begin on February 19, along with the team for the three-match ODI series against England from February 6 to 12. However, one decision in particular caught everyone’s attention: the appointment of Shubman Gill as the vice-captain of the team.

This announcement sparked heated discussions, especially after Dainik Jagran reported that a serious argument had taken place during the squad selection meeting at the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai. The meeting, which was supposed to wrap up by 12:30 PM, went on for over two hours longer than planned. The delay reportedly happened due to disagreements over who should be named vice-captain. Rohit Sharma and chief selector Ajit Agarkar pushed for Shubman Gill, seeing him as a potential future leader for Indian cricket. On the other hand, head coach Gautam Gambhir strongly backed Hardik Pandya for the role, emphasizing Pandya’s leadership skills and proven track record.

Gautam gambhir want hardik pandya as vice captain because of his performance in white ball cricket in recent time, he always choose players according to merit.

But there is rohit sharma who wants to control team that's why he always priorities his favorite players. pic.twitter.com/gIWcY4bmIE
— Ankit⁶⁴ (@TeamYashasvi) January 19, 2025

No one deserves ODI & T20I captaincy more than hardik pandya, BCCI and Rohit playing cheap politics again with him.

Now Rohit makes sure that hardik will not captain indian side in future. unreal politics just becoz hardik sacked him from IPL captaincy. pic.twitter.com/RsghSnIhW7
— Kevin (@imkevin149) January 19, 2025

The controversy gained more traction when fans started linking the debate to past IPL events. During the 2024 IPL season, Hardik Pandya had taken over the captaincy of the Mumbai Indians from Rohit Sharma. This led to speculation that personal issues between Rohit and Pandya might have influenced the decision at the selection meeting. Many accused Rohit of letting IPL dynamics interfere with national team decisions, while others believed promoting Gill was the right move for India’s future.

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Hardik Pandya, once seen as the next leader of the Indian cricket team, rose to prominence by leading the Gujarat Titans to the IPL final in 2022 and clinching the title in 2023. His leadership potential earned him the vice-captaincy in both ODIs and T20Is, where he successfully led India during Rohit Sharma’s absence. Despite being vice-captain during India's victorious T20 World Cup campaign in June 2024, his poor performance as captain in the 2024 IPL and other factors led to his sudden exclusion from the leadership group.

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Following Rohit Sharma's retirement from T20 Internationals, the obvious choice for leadership seemed to be Hardik Pandya, given his previous experience and success. However, in a surprising move, Hardik was replaced by Suryakumar Yadav as T20I captain, with Axar Patel stepping in as vice-captain. Additionally, Shubman Gill was appointed as the ODI vice-captain under Rohit Sharma's leadership. This unexpected change has left Pandya entirely out of the picture.

There has also been significant discussion around the exclusion of Karun Nair and Sanju Samson from the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 squad. Karun Nair, who had an exceptional Vijay Hazare Trophy 2024-25 season with 752 runs in 7 innings, including 5 centuries at a staggering average of 389.5, was surprisingly overlooked. Similarly, Sanju Samson's exclusion has sparked debates comparing his performances to Rishabh Pant’s.

Hardik Pandya

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