Former Indian Test opener Aakash Chopra has questioned the team management for not handling Sanju Samson and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi properly in the T20I series against England. Samson was dropped from the final XI after he managed a solitary run in the opening game.
Earlier, Samson had returned with scores of 5 and 0 in two T20Is against Ireland. On the other hand, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was handed his much-awaited debut in the second game against England but the youngster was dismissed after scoring only 14 runs off 10 balls.
In the next two games, Sooryavanshi was dismissed after scoring 13 and 15. However, surprisingly he was dropped in the final game of the series on Saturday. Sanju Samson was brought back into the playing XI in Sooryavanshi’s place but the Kerala batter could score a cameo of 14-ball 27.
“Transition is difficult, but is the selection process right? What we did with Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Sanju Samson is a problem because we haven’t benefited anyone. We gave Vaibhav Suryavanshi three consecutive chances for sure, he couldn’t cross 15 runs in any of those and got out against short balls many times, but we gave only three chances,” Chopra said on his YouTube Channel.
“You can’t decide in three, whether it’s a 15-year-old kid or a 25-year-old. When it’s a dead rubber and you have already lost the series, you couldn’t have gained anything from this. The only thing you could have gained was Vaibhav probably scoring runs. So you could have played Vaibhav here so that he could have scored runs and ended the England tour well,” he added.
Chopra questioned the team management for not giving regular chances to Sanju Samson and for dropping him for the Zimbabwe tour.
“Vaibhav still got three consecutive matches, but the other was played the first and last match, and he isn’t being sent on the Zimbabwe tour. What exactly are we doing? We are saying that there are a few changes due to transition, but can that change not be managed better?” he said.
“Sanju Samson might be wondering what he is doing. Of course, he got out in Ireland, two knocks can go bad for anyone, but after that, he got out in one match, which got abandoned, then he was made to sit out in three matches, and then when he was brought back, we had already lost the series. It was a dead rubber,” Chopra observed.
Samson had scored 321 runs in five matches of the T20 World Cup, and he was awarded MVP of the tournament.
