New Delhi, Sep 23 (IANS) India head coach Gautam Gambhir has revealed that leaving out Sanju Samson for teenaged batting sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi during the T20I series in England left him awake all night, adding that it was the toughest decision he had to make in his coaching tenure in the shortest format.

India had to drop Samson, the Player of the Tournament in this year’s T20 World Cup triumph, after the first T20I of the five-match series in England in July, which the visitors lost. He was replaced by Sooryavanshi, who made his T20I debut in Manchester. Samson returned to the playing eleven at the expense of Sooryavanshi in the 3-0 series win over Afghanistan, including hitting consecutive fifties.

"In two years of my journey, that was 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 because someone who was player of the tournament, and then you have to leave him out after three or four games. And the reason was probably Vaibhav was in that kind of form as well, and we had to win the series.

“Because ultimately you are there and when you are playing for India, or when you are coaching India, you want to win each and every series possible. I had a very, very honest conversation with him and I told him that that is one of the reasons why, because Vaibhav was in that kind of form, and we needed someone to score runs at the top, we needed that little bit of a platform at the top as well. And he was fine with it. And that's a conversation which me and Sanju had, and he took it in good spirits," said Gambhir to JioStar ahead of the start of India's home season via three ODIs and five T20Is against the West Indies.

At the same time, Gambhir clarified that young players like Sooryavanshi must bide their time to get into playing eleven. "I know, it is (tough). But then, I made him understand that I know you're in good form, but sometimes with the players who have done well for a long time, you will have to wait for your opportunity.

“There's one more thing - social media or outside noise doesn't decide the playing eleven. Playing eleven who, in that dressing room, or who the coach and captain feel can win us the match, or what is the best playing eleven, and who have done well for such a long time because if Vaibhav plays today, then it's going to be a tough conversation between me and whoever we leave out, whether it's Abhishek or Sanju.

“So we can't suddenly ignore that a combination that has created such an impact over the last one and a half or two years, that after three or four failures we drop them and play a young player who is very talented, who is also in very good form.

“So sometimes you will have to wait for your opportunity and we still want to create that security in that dressing room. Because 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," he explained.

Gambhir further praised T20I skipper Shreyas Iyer for his selflessness as a leader. The duo worked closely as captain-mentor in the successful IPL 2024 campaign for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). "Look, my first experience with Shreyas was when I actually went to KKR in 2024. Obviously, he was captaining there and the best thing I liked about Shreyas was that he was actually, at times, willing to leave his position as well at number four.

“He was so flexible that he was okay if someone goes ahead of him and it happens very rarely that a captain, who is probably your main batter as well, sacrifices his position for the team's cause, whether for someone else for impact or from a left-hand, right-hand combination point of view, he is willing to sacrifice his position.

"That is when I realized that the first and foremost quality of a good leader - I'm not going to talk about captaincy - is how selfless you are and Shreyas has that quality. That probably was the massive tick that Shreyas can carry for the rest of his journey as a captain.

“Because you can be hardworking, you can be disciplined, you can be fit, you can be the number one batter. But if you are not selfless, then all those other things stand for nothing. But Shreyas, I think he's got all the other things, and on top of that, he's got that selflessness as well," he added.

Gambhir signed off by asserting that short-term stumbles should not trigger knee-jerk reactions in India T20I set-up. "For two years, imagine, you imagine we won the World Cup - which team in the history of sport has gone undefeated from one World Cup to the other and gone on to win the World Cup?

“It didn't take these guys 17 years to win the second World Cup. It took these guys only 17 months to win the third World Cup. Suddenly one bad series or three bad games here and there does not make them a bad player or does not make us a bad side. So it was very important for us to have that continuity."

Watch the three-match ODI Series of the West Indies tour of India, from September 27 to October 3, 2 PM onwards, LIVE on JioHotstar and Star Sports Network.

--IANS

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