After setting the South Africa T20Is on fire not too long ago, Sanju Samson seems to have fallen off the cliff. In the five T20Is against England, Samson could only muster 51 runs in five innings, a surprisingly low tally of runs considering he burned up the charts with 216 runs from 4 innings in November. Surprisingly, Samson endured a technical flaw in his batting when England, particularly, Jofra Archer made his life tough with his pace. The India opener looked rushed against the genuine pacer of Archer and Mark Wood, getting dismissed off short ball in all five innings.
With intense competition for each spot in the XI, Samson's place can come in danger, especially with Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill waiting in the wings. However, Sanjay Manjrekar has requested the BCCI selection committee not to make a rash decision and instead insist on Samson purely because of the fresh lease of life his batting has shown.
"When you are looking at a T20 batting talent, you've got to see that when they are playing well, what is the kind of impact they can make? What contribution can they make. With Sanju Samson, when he plays well, he gets an incredible hundred and puts the team in a winning position. So such people are allowed failures – maybe a long patch of failures as well," Manjrekar said on ESPNCricinfo.
"That's the nature of the beast – T20 cricket – when you can't really play yourself in. So you have to keep taking those risks that they take and hopefully there is that one inning that propels him back into form. With Sanju Samson, you should just make sure he gets as many innings as possible. Purely because when he gets into form and plays well, he makes it all worth it. I'll have a lot of patience with this current version of Sanju Samson."
He is getting a little show: Manrjekar on Samson
{{/usCountry}}"That's the nature of the beast – T20 cricket – when you can't really play yourself in. So you have to keep taking those risks that they take and hopefully there is that one inning that propels him back into form. With Sanju Samson, you should just make sure he gets as many innings as possible. Purely because when he gets into form and plays well, he makes it all worth it. I'll have a lot of patience with this current version of Sanju Samson."
He is getting a little show: Manrjekar on Samson
{{/usCountry}}Manjrekar feels Samson can do by showing a little bit of self-awareness. He showed promise in the series opener at Kolkata, scoring 26 quick runs, but looked slightly down on confidence when he incurred single-digit scores of 5, 3 and 1 in Chennai, Rajkot and Pune respectively. Samson began well in the dead rubber at Wankhede, smashing two sixes and a four, before he was once again undone by Wood.
"He wouldn't mind the way he started off, because that nemesis – the short ball and the pull shot worked well for him twice. And I thought he would approach his innings differently once he played those shots. He goes outside leg-stump, this backfoot trigger movement and then looking to play everything on the off-stump," added Manjrekar.
When the England bowlers bowled at his body, he was crammed for room. Plus I think he is getting a little show as well. The ball is rushing on to him. So that's something that he needs to work on. Some street-smartness should see him through."