Kamal Ghorui
Sanju Samson’s long-awaited return to his home ground offered little respite from a difficult run with the bat. Playing in front of his hometown crowd in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday, the Kerala batter endured yet another lean outing, registering his fifth consecutive failure in the T20I series against New Zealand. Samson’s struggles followed a familiar script. Attempting to muscle a delivery across the line for a maximum, he could only manage a thick outside edge that carried safely to the deep third fielder. Dismissed for six, his series tally ended at just 46 runs from five innings, the lowest aggregate by an Indian opener in a five-match T20I series. That figure eclipsed his own unwanted record from exactly a year ago, when he scored 51 runs across five matches against England, repeatedly undone by the short ball.
Former India opener Aakash Chopra expressed concern over what he described as a recurring technical issue, calling the pattern of dismissals unusual at the international level. “I think now this is twice in about 12 months. It all started with that England series. Very rarely do you find a top class batter developing a pattern, especially in the shortest format of the game. He got dismissed five times in the same fashion – short ball caught in the deep. Here also, if you see his dismissals versus pace, there is an eerie pattern to it,” Chopra said during a discussion on ESPNcricinfo. Chopra went on to analyse Samson’s setup in detail. “You go deep inside the crease even before the ball is bowled. You try and play the ball, but the front foot doesn’t go anywhere. As a result, your bat actually closes every single time you play. He got lucky with an outside edge once in Thiruvananthapuram. In the previous game again, he closed the bat a bit too early, so again a pattern has developed,” he remarked. Samson’s position looks increasingly uncertain, especially with India’s reserve wicketkeeper Ishan Kishan enjoying a prolific series. Kishan capped his run with a scintillating maiden T20I century on Saturday night, propelling India to their second-highest total in the format just six days before their World Cup opener in Mumbai.
