Former Indian all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin praised head coach Gautam Gambhir for his statement on dropping Sanju Samson amid the England T20Is. After the series against Afghanistan, Gambhir admitted that dropping Samson was one of the most difficult decisions he has taken in his coaching tenure.
Samson was left out of the second T20I against England after returning with three low scores. The Indian opener was then backed for the final game against England but could not deliver. The flamboyant batter then missed the three-match T20I series against Zimbabwe.
However, Samson returned to India’s playing XI against Afghanistan and scored two fifties in the last two games of the series.
“Obviously, it was tough [leaving him out in the UK]. Probably the toughest decision I’ve taken in my coaching tenure is obviously leaving him out in that England series. Because obviously, the way he’s performed before that. But again, sometimes you go with players’ form as well,” Gambhir said during the post-series press conference.
“The decision to drop Sanju was wrong. What’s so honest about it? That is a fact. Sometimes when you take such a decision, you lose the player, the player’s confidence gets broken. But I really love the fact that he came out and admitted his mistake. My feeling is that all the decisions going forward should be taken from this perspective. You should also take the trust factor of the player into account. Then it will be much better,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
On the other hand, Ashwin said Afghanistan should have been given the freedom to prepare pitches according to their strength as they were the hosts against India.
“If Delhi were Afghanistan’s home ground, they should prepare the pitches, right? If they had the power to prepare pitches, they would not have played on pitches like that. Those were typical IPL pitches where Afghanistan faced difficulty. The home team should have an advantage. If that advantage is low-scoring matches, then we should be used to watching low-scoring games. We should not keep expectation as an Indian viewer that we will only watch high-scoring games,” Ashwin said.
India’s T20I team will be next in action in the Asian Games.
