Is Shubman Gill Using His Captain’s Badge to Fill India’s Squad With His GT Mates?

Let me say this clearly before anything else. Shubman Gill is a good cricketer. Nobody is taking that away from him. But what is happening right now with India’s squad selections is starting to smell really bad, and honestly, it is surprising that more people are not talking about it openly.

The BCCI just announced the India squad for the upcoming Afghanistan series. One test match in Mullanpur on June 6 and three ODIs across Dharamsala, Lucknow, and Chennai. Fifteen players in the test squad. And out of those fifteen, seven of them play for Gujarat Titans in the IPL. Seven. Out of fifteen. That is nearly half the squad from one franchise.

Let that number sit with you for a second.

The Numbers Do Not Lie

Here is who got picked from Gujarat Titans for the test squad alone. Shubman Gill himself as captain. Sai Sudharsan. Mohammed Siraj. Washington Sundar. Prasidh Krishna. Manav Suthar. And Gurnoor Brar.

For the ODI series, Gill, Siraj, Sundar, Krishna, and Brar are all there again alongside Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.

🚨 News 🚨

Presenting #TeamIndia‘s squads for the @IDFCFIRSTBank Test match and the 3️⃣-match ODI series against Afghanistan in June 🙌#INDvAFG pic.twitter.com/hFiABALLld

— BCCI (@BCCI) May 19, 2026

Now I want you to think about this honestly. Is Afghanistan really such a scary opponent that India needed to pick seven Gujarat Titans players for the test squad? Afghanistan is a developing test nation. They are improving, yes. But India playing them at home is not exactly the Ashes. This was the perfect series to try new faces, give chances to performers from domestic cricket who have been waiting years for a shot, and actually rotate the squad properly.

Instead, what we got looks like Gill called up his IPL teammates and the selectors just nodded along.

What Happened to the Mumbai Core?

For years, people used to complain that Mumbai Indians players got too much preference in India selections. There was always grumbling about it in cricketing circles. Whether it was fully justified or not is a different debate. But here is the ironic part. That favouritism people used to criticise is now just being replaced by a new version of the same thing.

The Mumbai influence is fading. Fine. That is natural. Senior players are ageing, the team needs to move on. But moving on does not mean handing over the keys to one IPL franchise and saying go ahead, pick whoever you want.

The problem was never Mumbai specifically. The problem is the idea that where you play your IPL cricket should have any influence at all on who gets picked for India. And right now, that problem is very much alive. It just has a different team name attached to it.

Gurnoor Brar in a Test Squad? Seriously?

Let us talk about some of the specific picks because a few of them genuinely need to be questioned.

Gurnoor Brar. He is a promising young bowler, no doubt. But picking him in a test squad for a home series against Afghanistan while there are seasoned domestic performers who have been grinding in the Ranji Trophy for years feels like a stretch. What has he done in red ball cricket that earns him this call-up over others?

And Manav Suthar, a left arm spinner, getting the nod is fine on paper because India does need variety in spin options. But you have to ask yourself whether he would have gotten this opportunity if he was not playing his IPL under the same franchise umbrella as the captain.

This is not about these players being bad. It is about whether the selection process is actually merit-based or whether something else is influencing decisions.

The Chemistry Excuse Is Lazy

Some people defending these selections are saying that picking GT players together builds on-field chemistry because they already know each other. They play together in the IPL, so they understand each other’s game, and that translates to international cricket.

This is one of the laziest arguments in cricket.

International cricket builds its own chemistry. That is literally what training camps, practice sessions, and playing matches together is for. India has never had a problem with players from different franchises gelling together as a unit. The 2011 World Cup winning squad was full of players from different IPL teams. The 2024 T20 World Cup winning team had the same. Nobody was sitting there saying oh but these guys do not play for the same franchise, how will they ever understand each other.

Using franchise chemistry as a justification for picking seven players from the same IPL team in a national squad is just a convenient story being told to cover something that does not look good under scrutiny.

Gill Is the Captain, Not the Chief Selector

This is the core issue that nobody wants to say directly, so let me say it.

Shubman Gill is the captain of the Indian cricket team. That is his job. His job is to lead the team that is picked for him, make tactical decisions on the field, handle the dressing room, and get results. His job is not to decide who plays alongside him.

When the squad starts looking like it was designed around what is most comfortable for the captain rather than what is best for Indian cricket, that is a problem. And right now, it genuinely looks like the selectors are either taking heavy influence from Gill or are so eager to make his captaincy look smooth that they are compromising the selection process to do it.

Either way, it is bad. Either the captain has too much power over selections, or the selectors are being sycophantic toward him. Neither is healthy for Indian cricket.

What About the Players Who Deserved a Chance?

This is the part that genuinely hurts if you follow domestic cricket closely.

There are red ball cricketers in India right now who have put in extraordinary Ranji Trophy seasons. Bowlers with 40 plus wickets. Batters with consistent triple digit scores at difficult venues against quality opposition. These players wake up every morning, work hard, perform in front of small crowds with no IPL cameras and no franchise contracts backing them, and they deliver.

And then the national squad gets announced and half the spots go to Gujarat Titans players because the current captain plays his IPL there.

That is demoralising. Not just for the players who missed out but for the entire domestic structure of Indian cricket. If young cricketers start believing that performing in the Ranji Trophy matters less than getting picked by the right IPL franchise, then Indian cricket has a serious long-term problem on its hands.

The BCCI Needs to Answer For This

Ultimately this is not just about Gill. He is a cricketer doing what any cricketer would love to do, which is play with people he knows and trusts. You cannot blame him for that at a human level.

The blame sits squarely with the BCCI and the selection committee. They are the ones who are supposed to ensure that the national team is picked on merit and merit alone. They are supposed to be the check on any kind of favouritism or bias in the process. That is their entire purpose.

Right now they are failing at that job spectacularly.

Seven players from one IPL franchise in a fifteen-member test squad for a home series against Afghanistan is not a coincidence. It is not just chemistry planning. It is not some complex tactical master plan. It is favouritism. Plain and simple. And Indian cricket fans, domestic cricketers who have worked their entire lives for a national cap, and anyone who cares about the integrity of the selection process deserves better than this.

Shubman Gill may well be a fine captain. Let us give him that chance. But let him be judged by what he does with a squad picked on merit, not a squad that looks like it was assembled around his personal comfort zone.

Until the BCCI addresses this, the questions will keep coming. And they should.

Afghanistan series begins June 6, 2026 with the one-off test in Mullanpur, followed by ODIs in Dharamsala, Lucknow, and Chennai.

                                               

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