Top News

NEW DELHI: Sanju Samson’s frustrating run with the bat continued in the ongoing T20I series against New Zealand, with another start going unconverted — and this time, batting legend Sunil Gavaskar did not hold back. The former India captain delivered a stinging on-air assessment after Samson was bowled for 24 off 15 balls in the fourth T20I, calling out glaring technical flaws that, in his view, summed up the wicketkeeper-batter’s struggles. Chasing a daunting 216 at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, India were under early pressure after losing Abhishek Sharma and captain Suryakumar Yadav cheaply. Samson initially looked promising, striking three crisp boundaries and a six to briefly steady the innings. However, just as he appeared to be finding his rhythm, New Zealand skipper Mitchell Santner struck, sneaking one through to rattle Samson’s stumps.

Gavaskar, on commentary, immediately zeroed in on what he felt was the root cause of the dismissal — Samson’s footwork, or lack of it.“My first impression is that there was no footwork at all. Not very sure whether there was any turn. First impression was he was just standing there making room and playing through the offside,” Gavaskar said, offering a blunt initial diagnosis.

After reviewing the replay, Gavaskar doubled down, expanding on the technical lapse that has repeatedly hurt Samson against spin.“Like I said, hardly any movement of the feet. Going outside leg-stump, once again exposing all three stumps and when you miss, the bowler’s gonna hit, and that’s what happened to Sanju Samson the second time around,” he added.The 24-run knock was Samson’s highest score in the series so far, following earlier failures of 10, 6 and 0, but it did little to ease the scrutiny. With Ishan Kishan impressing at No. 3 earlier in the series and the T20 World Cup at home drawing closer, pressure is mounting rapidly on Samson to justify his place in the XI.