Not too long ago, Rinku Singh could do no wrong. To be fair, he hasn't done any wrong till date. Yet, he finds himself out of India's T20I squad. The left-hander only played one of the five T20Is in Australia and is now not even a part of the T20I squad for the ongoing South Africa series. For someone who averages 42.30 and strikes at 161.76, being dropped from the squad is inexplicable. Why did it happen?
Looking from the Indian team's perspective, Rinku's exclusion from the T20I setup seems to be a domino effect of the Shubman Gill-Sanju Samson debate. Since Gill's return to the Indian team for the 2025 Asia Cup, Rinku has only featured in three matches and didn't get to bat in one of those. From the outset, the Uttar Pradesh left-hander has become an unexpected collateral damage.
Will Gill becoming the vice-captain, him opening the batting was a certainty and it meant that Samson had to make way from the opening spot. The Kerala batter then had to bat in the middle order, an area where Rinku was specialising. With Hardik Pandya and Shivam Dube both in the mix along with Axar Patel, Gautam Gambhir's preference for all-rounders meant that Rinku had to sit out.
Samson, naturally suited to the top order in T20Is, soon made way for Jitesh Sharma who is more suited to be the middle order batter-finisher with keeping abilities. On merit, Samson arguably deserves the opening spot and if that were the case, Rinku would get one of the middle order spots as Jitesh would then not make it on his batting ability alone.
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What India must realise is that Rinku needs to be part of the T20I side, regardless of whom they pick between Samson and Gill at the top. The 28-year-old is arguably India's best finisher in T20Is alongside Hardik, and the duo need to be there if the side wants to have serious firepower in the slog overs.
As things stand, Rinku doesn't seem to be in the mix for T20 World Cup 2026 unless any major injuries occur to major batters. For instance, he was part of the squad for Australia only because Hardik wasn't available and Nitish Reddy too had injuries. Rinku is too priceless a player to be dealt with in this fashion.
Captain Suryakumar Yadav's poor form isn't helping either but him getting a long rope is obvious, given his contributions to the side in the shortest format. Also, it is unusual to sack the captain so close to the World Cup and Yadav can never be written off due to his caliber.
After the South Africa series, India have five more T20Is against New Zealand in January and that will be Rinku's final opportunity to have a shot at the upcoming World Cup.
