Mohammad Kaif slams India’s ‘confused’ management after the England whitewash
Former India batter Mohammad Kaif has questioned the team’s decision-makers after the 4-0 T20I loss in England, singling out the in-and-out handling of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Sanju Samson.
Jul 13, 2026
Mohammad Kaif has not held back. After India were beaten 4-0 by England in the T20I series, the former India batter took aim at the team’s decision-makers, and his central charge was that nobody seems to know what the plan is. “Never seen a more confused Indian cricket team management,” Kaif said, and the case he built around it came down to the treatment of two very different players: teenage opener Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and wicketkeeper Sanju Samson.
The sequence he was reacting to is easy enough to follow, and that is part of his point. Samson began the tour in the side and managed 5, 0 and 1 in his first three innings. He was then left out at Old Trafford so that Sooryavanshi, still only 15, could make his debut and become India’s youngest men’s international. The teenager made 14, 13 and 15 across three matches, was dropped for the final game at Southampton, and Samson walked straight back in. Two players, one spot, and a selection call that flipped twice inside a single series.
Confidence, not doubts
Kaif’s issue is less about who should have played and more about what the churn does to the players caught in it. “The handling of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Sanju Samson has been far from professional,” he said. “One is a generational talent, another a World Cup winner. They need to be given confidence, not doubts in their minds.” It is a fair thing to raise. Sooryavanshi is 15 and three innings into his international career, while Samson is a senior man who was in the India squad that won the T20 World Cup in March. Shuttling either of them in and out on the back of a couple of low scores is the sort of thing that leaves a mark.
A shot at the leadership picks
Kaif went further and questioned the captaincy structure itself. Shreyas Iyer took over as T20I captain this year. Suryakumar Yadav, who had lifted the T20 World Cup in March, was dropped, and Tilak Varma came in as his deputy. Kaif argued that handing those roles to players whose places are not nailed on creates a problem of its own. “You have made two players the captain and vice-captain, who probably don’t even deserve a guaranteed place in the playing XI every match,” he said. “Once you make them captain and vice-captain, they are automatically undroppable.” Whether you agree with him or not, it points at a real tension: a leadership badge can quietly protect a spot that form alone would not.
The backdrop makes the criticism sting more. The defeat was England’s first-ever bilateral T20I series win over India, it cost India their No. 1 ranking in the format, and it stretched a winless run in T20Is to seven matches. For a side that were crowned T20 world champions in March, that is a steep drop, and Kaif is not the only voice asking how the group got here.
India get a chance to reset almost straight away. The one-day series starts at Edgbaston with Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah back in the mix, and a strong showing there would take some of the heat out of conversations like this one. Another poor week, and the questions Kaif is raising will only get louder.