Former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar praised Sanju Samson despite India’s 24-run loss in the fourth T20I against the West Indies at Hyderabad on Wednesday. Samson scored an impressive knock of 56 runs off 23 balls as he scored six fours and four sixes in his quickfire knock and made the most of the Powerplay overs.
Gavaskar praised Samson for scoring runs straight down the ground in the initial phase of his innings and then for playing square off the wicket after settling at the crease.
“Sanju Samson is hasty at times. Even in this format, you have a few balls to figure out how the pitch is behaving, and you can adjust your batting according to that. If you know the ball is coming nicely onto the bat, you can play cricketing shots with a straight bat in the V at the start,” Sunil Gavaskar said on Star Sports.
“After that, when you play in the V, the bowler’s length changes automatically. The bowler’s length becomes slightly short. Then you can play square of the wicket. He was doing like that only. He played in the V at the start. After that, when the ball was coming halfway down the pitch, he was flicking them and batting extremely well,” Gavaskar observed.
Samson was caught at square-leg boundary while playing the pull shot and Gavaskar said he could have cleared the ropes if he had taken a full swing against Keemo Paul.
“In the end, he got deceived because Keemo Paul cramped him a little with that ball. If it was a full bat swing, the ball might have reached Secunderabad,” he said.
Gavaskar said Abhishek, who scored 29 runs off 24 balls, could not bat at his absolute best as he didn’t get strike in the Powerplay overs.
“Whenever he scores 50, it seems like India would be able to achieve any target in front of them. However, this time Abhishek didn’t get much strike in their partnership. Sometimes, when you don’t get much strike, you go slightly out of touch, and that’s what happened with Abhishek,” Gavaskar observed.
The fifth and final match of the series between India and the West Indies will be played at M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru, on Saturday.
