Former famous batsman Sunil Gavaskar has spoken on wicketkeeper-batsman Sanju Samson following his exclusion from Team India squad for the forthcoming Champions Trophy. Samson did not make it into the 15-man squad after much talk about his inclusion and this left him very disappointed on Saturday. With KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant named as respective wicketkeepers, the decision to snub Samson garnered much criticism. Sharing his views over the controversy, Gavaskar mentioned that the exclusion might have been very painful for Samson.
“Very tough because the man has been scoring hundreds and hundreds of runs. There is no excuse to leave him out. However, he wasn’t an easy choice against Rishabh Pant, a man who we all know can change a game with a good knock. Also, Pant is a left-handed batsman and with Sami batting as a right-handed batsman, he might not be as good a keeper as Pant, although he might prove to be better with the bat than Pant,” Gavaskar said in an interview with India Today.
Gavaskar went on to elucidate the rationale of the selectors in giving Pant, rather than Samson, the nod, describing the former as a “better keeper.”
“Pant can change the game a little more than Samson and this is why Samson missed out. But there should be no reason why he should feel dejected because there will be a lot of sympathy in Indian cricket fans for what he has done,” Gavaskar added.
Since his ODI debut, Samson has had a stop-start career, with consistent snubs from the selectors despite having a stellar record in the format.
In almost a decade, he has played just 16 ODIs, scoring 510 runs with an average of 56.66, and a strike rate of 99.60, including 1 century and 3 fifties.
Team India’s squad for the ICC Champions Trophy
Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill (VC), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja
