Former India cricketer Aakash Chopra believes that there is very little chance of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi replacing Sanju Samson for the second T20I against the West Indies in Ranchi on Friday.
Time and again, Samson’s place in the India T20I playing XI has been questioned. The Kerala batter enjoyed an impressive T20 World Cup campaign earlier this year, scoring 321 runs from five innings.
He then scored a couple of half-centuries against Afghanistan in September, but apart from those, his recent form has been unimpressive. He scored just nine runs in the one-off T20I against Japan, and followed it up with scores of 7 and 2 against Sri Lanka and Pakistan, respectively, at the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya.
then scored just 11 runs from nine deliveries in the T20I series opener against West Indies on Tuesday.
“Since Bihar is in the neighbourhood, there is talk of . Will there be a chance of him playing? No, it won’t be there. You will have to agree that it cannot happen that he plays now, and if we start saying this about Sanju Samson after every match, then we are damned. How will you manage cricket then? Just don’t go there,” said on his official YouTube channel.
Vaibhav, who had a breakthrough with Rajasthan Royals (RR), made his senior India debut in a T20I against England in England. The 15-year-old has played eight T20Is thus far and has scored 246 runs at a strike rate of 186.36. He has two half-centuries to his name.
Chopra said that he wanted all-rounder in the playing XI for the second T20I. However, he wasn’t sure whether the Indian team management shared the same opinion about Reddy.
“I seriously think about Nitish Kumar Reddy for sure. However, I can’t do that either after the first match. I wanted you to play Nitish from the start itself, because how will you prepare him? However, that’s my thinking and might be your thinking as well, but the Indian team is not thinking like that,” he said.
India defeated West Indies by eight wickets in the first T20I in Lucknow on Tuesday, with skipper Shreyas Iyer slamming an unbeaten 102 to help the Men in Blue chase down a total of 172. India, led by Shubman Gill, had also clinched the three-match ODI series prior to this with a 2-1 scoreline.
