As BBCI announced the squad for the T-20 World cup, Indian players started trending on Twitter. Dinesh Karthik twitted, “
after getting selected on the combination, however other people started trolling the selectors for not selecting their favourite players. Samson is not even selected for the bilateral series against South Africa and Australia. Once again, Kerala’s wicket-keeper batsman is snubbed by selection committee members from ICC T20 World Cup.
After reviewing the Indian squad, former Pakistan spinner Danish Kaneria said, “Sanju is not getting sufficient opportunities in Indian Squad.” He added, “Sanju performed very well whenever he got a chance to play. I would have gone for Samson instead of Rishabh Pant.”
Earlier this year, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma backed up Sanju when he was selected for Sri Lanka T20Is at home in March. “As a team management, we see a lot of potentials, we see a lot of talent and a lot of match-winning abilities in that individual (Sanju Samson),” Rohit Sharma said.
An old video of Ravi Shastri is also getting viral, in that, he said, “Sanju has plenty of shots more than any Indian in Australian conditions.”
Rishabh Pant has very poor record in T20s, as he averages only 23 in 58 matches for Indian team. Although, he got preferred over Sanju Samson and fans are not digesting this decision.
Indian fans are claiming that, friendship has been given importance over hard work and talent. Nearly all the experts agrees that Md Shami should be in the main squad inspite of reserves.
But if we analyse both the decisions it seems that good decision is taken at last. If we compare between Sanju and Pant then, Pant is far ahead, as Southpaw has stablished himself in ODIs and Test whereas, he is unable to crack the T20 code till now, but at international level, he has proven his capabilities whereas Sanju Samson still has to prove his capabilities. In T20s as well he averages only 21 in 16 matches which is lower than his counterpart, so, selectors has preferred Pant over him. Talking about Shami, he is not out of this squad because of talent, he is out of this World Cup team just for work load management for the next year 50 over World Cup. If India would have won the Asia Cup then he wouldn’t have selected as reserves as well. Due to abysmal performance of Indian team in the Asia Cup, he is selected as backup as Indian team don’t want to left anything for the last moment.
The injury of Ravindra Jadeja is the major set back for the Indian team ahead of the World Cup and this could also effect their playing combination. But the recovery from Jasprit Bumrah and Harshal Patel is the major boost for the Indian team. Overall, this squad has all the potential to lift the T20 World Cup.
