On a Friday morning in Anantapur (Andhra Pradesh), in their second-round match of the Duleep Trophy 2024 against India A, Sanju Samson who had been a wicketkeeper-batter returned to first-class cricket but it wasn’t a cheerful return for him as he managed to score only five runs for India D. Day 2 saw Samson walk onto bat after opener Yash Dubey was dismissed and Aaqib Khan released a short ball that brought four points for Sami.
However, Aaqib had the better of him again later on with another short pitch delivery. With this one, Samson went for a pull shot which was off-target and caused Prasidh Krishna to catch it at mid-on.
Originally, none of the four squads for the Duleep Trophy included Samson, but after Ishan Kishan had to miss out from first round play because of his groin injury therefore, he was brought into India D squad as a replacement in place of Kishan. But still KS Bharat was preferred instead hence he couldn’t make it into the playing XI.
It is interesting how Ishan made an unanticipated comeback into the match in round two after joining the Indian C squad prior to being included into their playing XI. This was followed by him making quite an impact with his dazzling century-111 off 126 balls aided by 14 fours and three sixes.
Despite that, though, Samson will be hoping to rectify things in the second dig.
The place for wicketkeeper in India’s Test team was up for grabs as Rishabh Pant had not played for a long time owing to his complications following a car accident. Meanwhile, players such as KS Bharat, Ishan Kishan and Dhruv Jurel made their debuts on behalf of India.
With a head start of half a century during tour of West Indies, Ishan had created a good impression but later he went away from cricket due to psychological fatigue at some point within year 2023. Earlier this year, he also skipped domestic matches leading BCCI remove him from their list of contracted players.
