India cricket: Why Sanju Samson can never win over his critics

Sanju Samson can bat. He can play spin and pace with equal felicity. All of us agree on that. Then why hasn’t he played enough international cricket? For over 10 years, he has made only fleeting appearances in the Indian team; for nearly five years, the selectors even refused to look at him.

The lack of opportunity partly explains Samson’s inability to nail a place in the national squad. Opportunities are a rarity in the Indian team, packed with many highly talented players. The odd chance arises when a regular player is injured or off-colour.

Yet, that doesn’t fully explain the poor treatment meted out to Samson. In the recent past, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill had broken into the playing XI. Look a little further away, and you will find Dinesh Karthick making a return at 37 to play the ODI World Cup.

Is Samson inconsistent?

It just shows how selectors can influence a player’s career. In Samson’s case, there was no genuine effort to mould him into a cricketer. He was left to flounder repeatedly and was swiftly labelled INCONSISTENT. All the legends of the game and cricket pundits latched on to the epithet to justify his exclusion.

Inconsistency is an abused term. It’s used to tar inconvenient players. Consistency can never be the sole yardstick in white-ball cricket, where aggression, fraught with high risk, rules. But that’s the criteria applied to keep Samson out.

If consistency had been the barometer, Pant’s genius would have been lost to Indian cricket. How does KL Rahul retain his place despite repeated failures, injuries, and occasionally brilliant knocks? How did Karthik play all the ODI World Cup games ahead of Pant? Inconsistency doesn’t matter if you have the team management’s confidence.

Two centuries and two ducks

Samson also played into the hands of his detractors: he didn’t fully use the handful of chances. That allowed the selectors to drop him with ease. Long rope? That’s not for Samson. That’s been reserved for the blue-eyed boys. Or else, how do you explain the repeated opportunities for Ishan Kishan and others? Samson was not even in the Duleep Trophy squads until an injury to Kishan forced his inclusion.

Even two T20 International centuries didn’t satisfy Samson’s carping critics? Two ducks followed his two centuries, and his detractors swiftly dusted up the old trope of inconsistency to bash the Kerala batter. And he responded in an apt manner: another electric ton.

That’s the best way to react to criticism, something Samson hasn’t been able to do earlier. To be fair to Samson, how does he show his mettle when dropped immediately after a failure? He never had any room to err. That seemed to have changed under the new coach Gautam Gambhir and captain Suryakumar Yadav.

How Gambhir and Yadav infused confidence

Gambhir and Yadav are unabashed admirers of Samson’s skills. Even after two flops in Sri Lanka, the two were on the phone with Samson, providing inputs to overcome his lean patch. Moreover, they promised him seven matches, regardless of failure.

It seemed to have worked: three T20I centuries in a calendar year — a world record. If the previous team managements had provided Samson with the same confidence, he would have blossomed much earlier.

When Samson toured New Zealand in 2020, he made quickfire knocks and got out early. His explanation: he didn’t want to waste any deliveries since captain Virat Kohli was to follow. Why didn’t anyone in the team advise the youngster to temper his aggression in the early phase? It only means they all wanted him to fail.

Baffling selections

Samson failed and was tossed into the wilderness, only to be brought back occasionally and setting him up to fail again. He was named to the T20 squad when the ODI World Cup loomed and chosen for the ODI squad when the T20 World Cup came around. Some logic, that. It again points to the fact that the Rajasthan Royals’ captain never figured in India’s long-term plans.

When Pant was recuperating, Rohit Sharma preferred Ishan Kishan, who thrived on Indian wickets. Even Samson’s mentor Rahul Dravid was unable to provide the necessary breaks.

To Samson’s credit, he never vent his frustration. He remained humble and patient despite the setbacks. Even in interviews after he was not picked and in social media posts, Samson constantly harped on the need to back the Indian team. He never blamed anyone for his misfortune.

Why father’s rant doesn’t help Samson

That’s why Samson’s father’s outburst is baffling. Just when Samson started scoring big in international cricket, his father blamed captains Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and even coach Dravid for wasting ten years of his son’s career. That rant in an interview on Media One channel was ill-advised. It shouldn’t have happened. More so when Samson seemed like cementing his place.

Dhoni, Kohli, Sharma and Dravid may not have preferred Samson, but no one can question their intentions and integrity. These are legends of Indian cricket, and I’m sure their decisions were for the team’s greater good.

Vishwanath Samson should be happy that his son is finally getting his due. And Samson should scoop this chance to establish himself as Inda’s T20 opener, the slot left vacant by Sharma’s retirement.

Samson’s strokes may be breathtaking, but that isn’t enough. He has to keep scoring hundreds, or the inconsistent tag will be slapped on him again.

In T20 games, openers are crucial for the liftoff in the powerplay. Games are won and lost in the first six overs when fielding restrictions are in place. Teams aim to score high even at the loss of a clump of wickets, because there will be a slowdown in the middle overs when spinners apply the squeeze.

The New Zealand women’s World Cup triumph last month was built on the base of the scintillating opening partnerships of Georgia Plimmer and Suzie Bates. Earlier, the blistering partnerships of Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow had shown the way for England’s first ODI World Cup win in 2019, and Jos Buttler and Alex Hales did just that while fashioning England’s T20 World Cup in 2022. Sharma and Kohli too used the playbook in India’s T20 World Cup win this year.

The downside is inconsistency. Openers live with that. Samson can’t.