Amid rumours of a rift in the Indian dressing room, it has emerged that head coach Gautam Gambhir was not in agreement with the head coach Ajit Agarkar and captain Rohit Sharma over two key decisions in India's squad for the 2025 Champions Trophy.

While India's ODI squad is a largely settled unit with little room for debate, the selection meeting on Saturday (January 18) lasted for more than two hours leaving fans and media confused as the press conference at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium saw an extraordinary delay. The disagreement between the head coach, selector, and captain has emerged as the reason behind the long meeting.

According to a report by Dainik Jagran, a top BCCI official present in the Mumbai office told them that Gambhir wanted Hardik Pandya as the vice-captain of the team while both Agarkar and Rohit were in favour of having Gill as the second-in-command. Ultimately, the 25-year-old retained the top job after being appointed vice-captain for the first time during the tour of Sri Lanka last year.

Hardik was India's designated vice-captain in the 2023 Cricket World Cup and 2024 T20 World Cup but after Suryakumar Yadav was appointed India's full-time T20I captain, the star all-rounder has been sidelines from the leadership group. Recently, the selectors named Axar Patel as the vice-captain of the T20I side for the five-match T20I series against England.

Gautam Gambhir Wanted Sanju Samson

The report also states that Gambhir was in favour of Sanju Samson being named as the second wicket-keeper of the squad behind KL Rahul. However, Rishabh Pant emerged as the chief selector's choice and was named in the 15-man squad.

Pant has only played one ODI since making his comeback after a 15-month hiatus from the sport following a near-fatal car accident. Samson scored a century against South Africa in December 2023 but has not played an ODI since then. He was also not named in Kerala's squad for the recently concluded Vijay Hazare Trophy (VHT).

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